comfortstitching

half hexagon quilt-a-long part 2 - cutting

Once you have found yourself a friendly little gang of fabrics you're happy to spend a bit of time with, you can get on with cutting out your half hexagons.  Template can be found here but please note this may not print to the correct size!! 

Please flickrmail Ruthdesigns for the correct sized template and she will e-mail it to you.  Remember to include your e-mail address!!!!

I cut out my half hexagon from template plastic and then gave my fabric a nice steamy iron before cutting them up into 2.5" strips.  I use  my template to cut out the shapes like this.

 

To work out how many pieces you need if you wish to make a different sized quilt to mine - Decide on the size in inches you would like your finished quilt to be,

divide the width by 2, this will give you the number of pieces you will need across the width of your quilt.
Divide the length by 7.25, multiply this by 2, add 1, round your answer up to the nearest whole number.  This will give you the number of rows you will need going down your quilt.

Multiply number of pieces across by the number of pieces down, this will give you the total number of pieces you will need.
If all this sounds too complicated just use less pieces, that will give you a smaller quilt!

It took me a good day to cut out all the shapes, I recommend a good film and several cups of tea for sustinance purposes.

 

I got about 48 half hexagons from quarter metre cuts of my Liberty fabrics but what you get will really depend on the width of your fabrics.  Use at least 10 different fabrics though I would recommend more.  Happy chopping!!!!!!!! 

Can't wait to see what fabrics everybody else is using and don't forget you can use the quilt-a-longer links in my sidebar to keep up with everyone else's progress and please do!

 

That's 756!!!!! half hexagon's!

It's not too late to join the quilt-a-long, just let me know in the comments below.

Back tommorow!! with a double dose of nine patch action!!!!!!  Oh yes!!

the great dresden plate robbery and other stories

Books, don't you just lOvE them.  Especially all those life could be so much better craft books, to leaf through while daintily dreaming your life away what if-ing.  What could seamingly go wrong with such awe-inspiring motivational tools as these........

Hatchet jobs are us together with the great dresden plate massacre productions are pleased to present to you, for your delectation and delight........a sad tale of patchwork robbery! 

So in between dental appointments and visits from much loved friends, I decided to knock up this easy and promisingly stress-free little d-plate sunny petalled flower number as a precursor to future possible dresden plate adventures or a taster for failure whichever way you may chance to look upon things known as stuff in life........Oh why??.....

After cutting into some much loved and saved fabric quarters, realisation is soon reached that all is not as it should be....the measurements do not measure up, the middle does not fit, why did I bother to dig myself into this patchwork hole???!

Several cups of tea leads to the inevitable conclusion that I must pull myself together and never fall for the instructional lies from this book again!!  Save the day operation ensues, aided by trusty Pffaf machinery and embroidery options to allow central circle with seam-allowance shortfall to be after all used and fit in the middle.

......I quite like how it turned out........thank heavens for mis-adventures......

From patchy recipes for flowers to..............a completely disjointed chair-y makeover.  I've shown this before, a short-age ago but decided to repeat it as I've been showing other stitchy bits I've made recently for my daughters.  This little seat is from the high-chair they both used as babies(!)  As their bottoms still fit into it, it is still in high usage but that very usage had brought about a much drabbier look. 

So this little princess was re-born and went to the ball after all in her new frock made of..........old t-shirts!!!...chopped up.....patched up....

and dressed up with a little doggy to attract the eyes!!!!!!! 

And a little embroidery on the back.

A flowery footnote...

 

First of many glamourously lipstick-y cherry poppies has opened up this morning, not a bad start for a Thursday......

Back soon with a crazy route to more nine-patches and other unfortunate tales of stitchy woe.

frilly pillow-talk and half hexagon quilt-a-long part one!

Edited to add: A quick guide to Half hexagon quilt a long posts

Part one - selecting fabrics and getting the template - is below!

Part two - cutting

Part three - placing

Part four - Making the quilt top

Part five - quilting

Part six - My finished half hexagon quilt

Oh! lordy what is she upto now??  More sewing?  Doesn't this women have meals to cook, shelves to dust, grime to scrub????  Just in case you were wondering (??) of course I do!  but I wouldn't dream of blogging about it, well not much anyway. 

  

The pillow you see above is one of a pair I just made for Ciara who has to hug pillows to lull her to sleep, only she over-hugs them until they are in need of much makeoverness. 

 

Before you start wondering how I find the time to create ruffles and patchwork them together with fabrics and crochet trims, let me tell you how easy it is.......I just pop into John Lewis in my lunch hour and buy the above wantingly beautiful fabric readily patchworked for a dreamy £6-ish for half a metre and knock up the two pillows in a couple of hours to much hugging applause from the lovely little miss C.

These are the two pillows I just replaced, The shabbiest of shabby-chic!!

Half hexagon quilt-a-long part one!   May I hereby present to you episode one of the quilt-a-long!  Joining me in the cast so far will be katy, hook and scumble, ann, rita, stephanie, sumea, kathleen, kelli and annie.    I will be adding these names to my sidebar so that we can check up on each others progress as we go, along with any others who decide to join us.

To get your template

Please email my friend Ruth at ruthdesigns(at)ntlworld.com

She will send you the file of templates, which now includes five

different sizes from 1.5" to 3.5".

(you will receive all the different sizes in the one file)

 Also take a look at these links which explain in a nutshell what will be doing!

cutting, joining and layout.

Please work at your own pace and add any queries you may have in the comments below, please also feel free to answer any of the queries in the comments too!!

 I shall be making a 67.5" long x 72" wide quilt, this is made up of 756 half hexagon pieces or 378 pairs (remember each hexagon is made up of 2 halves of the same fabric).  Very roughly I would say I'm looking at around 30 x quarter metre/yard cuts of fabric.  Although it's always best to have more.

The photo's above and below show the designs I am thinking of using, mostly bought from here.  I think small scale designs with an all over print work best for this design as they conceal the join in the centre of the hexagon more.  Please feel free to completely oppose this though!  One of the joys of us all quilting along together will be to see all the different approaches and end results!!  I always use 100% cotton fabric and thread.  I also find it a good idea to gather all your selected fabrics and then leave them lying around for a few days, somewhere you can see them as you whizz past getting on with all the other things you get on with.  This will really help you see how the fabrics work together as a group and you can update your selection if you need to before you start.

 

Hope this helps, I'll be adding the next instalment hopefully some time next week to give you time to get your fabrics ready.

For now, some bank holiday flowers...

 

The colours of these tulips remind me of those tutti-frutti sweets.

 

I adore these pink edged carnations and need to look at them hourly!

Happy Bank-holidaying!!  

More soon.........

luvvies united

 

So, you know I've been stitching up a few half hexagons into some quilty thing or other?  And I haven't actually said what this, that  or the other it might be.....Well today is the day of the big reveal!!!!!!!!!!!

Now don't get too excited, I know many of you were under the impression that this was just another, you know, quilt.  Well it's not and there's a couple of reasons for this.  Firstly and foremostly when I decided to use this pattern I was a bit worried about how my half hexagons would match up, I'm notorious you see for getting angle-type shapes squiffy and I thought this could end up as a bit of a blob quilt.  So my brain whirred a little and came up with the plan to start with something smaller.  Secondly I'm a Taurean and we love nothing more than a bit of practicality.....none of this art for art's sake-y business...what do you use it for...so I looked around a bit and decided on.........

 

Headboard covers...yes! you heard right headboard covers...it's true they do not have the kudo's of a quilt and there aren't whole books and websites devoted to the making of but they are useful nonetheless and they keep the bit behind your head during your night-nights very well insulated and that is quite important........isn't it???? 

and look below how diddley Ciara's bed is next to Asha's...

I think I can safely say that despite my worries this recipe for a quilt is decidedly foolproof!  So I will be embarking on a full size half hexagon quilt very soon....want to join me??????  Seems quite a few people are thinking about starting a bit of quilty patchworking....so I'm wondering if it might be an idea to go through things together.  A bit of quilty company is a good thing!!!!  Do let me know below!

My little nine-patchy wonder is also swimming along it's stitchy water's very nicely indeed! 

I'm debating on how to quilt it now, swirly complications or simple stitch in the ditch?????

Now the exciting bit!!!!!  This week I was the very proud recipient of not one but TWO awards!!!!!!!!!   They were both totally out of the pink!  And I'm mightily honoured to recieve them.  The first was the one lovely blog award given to me by the LOVELY melanie, the rules of this award state that I must give out this award to ten people.........BUT after much consideration, I've decided that I can't do that as it's just tooooooo difficult to choose and feels a bit like picking teams for P.E. in the fourth year at school.  SO I'm going to do a Sumea and offer this award up to any blogger in my sidebar AND anyone who has commented on my blog recently AND anyone whose blog I may ever have commented on too.  You want it?? just take it and display it proudly!!!!  AND you don't need to link back to me or pass it on unless you want to.

The second award is the one you can now see nestling up in the top right hand corner of my little blog with all the sweeties on it.  This award was presented to me by a virtuoso of inspiration........the amazingly talented and extremely effervescent........Kitschen Pink!!!!!!!!!!  and I cannot stress enough how completely stunned I was to have recieved such an accolade from such quarters!

The rules of this award state that I only need pass on this award if I want to.  So after more pondering procastination I've decided to present this award to a blog with severe eye-candyitis........Rosa e chocolat.  Go visit and drooooool........   

 

Wipppppppping along nicely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.......See you next week!!

 

 

nine patches and a winner

 

These post's have been so half hexagon drenched these past few days, it has come to the time to ring the changes.  Now keeping things all very geometric indeed, lets reduce the number of sides by a fraction and enter the land of of squares or rather more exactly, nine little squares making up a larger square.................this........ is nine patch territory.

All in the aid of another quilty, patchy wotsit for my two little girls of daughterliness.  There's pink....more blowsey blooms and all the usual suspects and.....ooooh!................whats this....camper vans!!!  Yes! camper vans!!!!!!!!!....with little people hanging out their washing!...cooking up their tea!!....and..playing their guuuuittarrs while standing next to their travelling rooms on wheels!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Novelty?.....yes!   Quirky?.....Oh very yes!!  New??.....not at all.  This ode to the camper in fabric format is finally being promoted from stash to quilt...fussily cut of course!!

 

nine patchity, blockity fun.

 

more coming soon........

 

Sorry! a minor hexagon gate-crashing blip.

 

You may remember the above two blocks from recent projects.  Just in case you're interested I've written up a little how to tutorial which you can find here or click on the house and tree pieced blocks in the sidebar.

And now the moment of truth!  We have a winner!!  The winner of my 100th post quilt giveaway is......number 100!!!

Jackie!  -  button tree crafts

Congratulations Jackie, I hope you love and enjoy your prize!!  I've just sent you an e-mail to get your address details. The quilt will be winging it's way to you soon!

Thank you so much to everyone else who entered this little competition of mine, I really was touched by all your sweet comments and only wish I could be sending you all a quilt.  I hope you will not be too upset as to never visit my little blog again.  I enjoyed this whole giveway-i-ness so much there will definately be more to come....soon!

Will be back later this week with awards, more nine-patching campers and that thrifty little t-shirty scrap covered childs chair I promised........

 

girl's world

 

Welcome to the new world......the future...the way forward..the world of machine stitched hexy's!  Where your paper-pieced and hand stitched, 15 years in the making and that's just for a pillow nightmare's are over!

Of course the above patchwork is mine, but the design, the light bulb moment, the idea of the half hex's are all courtesy of the highly lovely and extremely talented lovely lady Ruth, a technical genius and saviour of quilter's and patchworker's dreams everywhere.

 

 

 

I'm still not telling what I'm making, all will be revealed.....

By the mere sight of the pinkness above it should be no more than expected that these strawberry ice cream hues are for the benefits of big lady miss madam and little lady miss madam.  Otherwise known as the children of the house or champions of hiding what they should be tidying when they should have got it all done an hour ago any way.

 

This is the girls' bedroom dressed by mummy moi, all matchy-matchy with...

pillows made from old mini boden dress kitten fabric,

 

patchworked duvet covers avec red toile de car boot sale £1 laura ashley pyjama's!!!

 

the no expense spared teddy bear ribbon from a haberdashery shop in Crete!!!!

the matching bedside aide for drinks, lip glosses and books,  

 

the patchwork table cloth with the goat's, chicks and flossed flowers all with maxi pink effect.

 

no stitch spared fuschia's...

 

butter coloured evening primroses..

 

icing sugar lambs...

 

Scenic views of kites and bunting to sleep along to.

Back soon with revelations, nine patches and child's chair cover's fashioned from old t-shirts!

inch-y lady

 

The quilt giveaway is still open, if you haven't already entered you can find out how here.  Many thanks for all the kind and generous comments in the previous post.  Also an extra special thanks to all those who have been kind enough to add a link to the giveaway on their own blogs.  I've been (slowly) getting around to visiting all your lovely blogs to see what you've been upto, give me a bit of time I'll get to yours eventually.

I've been getting on with a brand new quilting project.  It involves lovely delicious hexagons, which is forever my favorite patchwork shape. 

The design is ultra extra clever as because you use half hexagons you can machine sew them together.  So no need to hand stitch the lot which enduring as it is takes up far too much time for someone like me who wants to get everthing made the day before yesterday.  I'm not telling you what I'm making yet, maybe you'd like to guess..

I decided to stick with inches on this project, I'm finding they're less troublesome when it comes to me making mistakes.  Don't think me and centimetres are too crazy about each other at the moment. 

I've added a tutorial for my scraptastic coin quilt or loose change quilt as I affectionally like to call it.  You'll find the link in my sidebar under surprisingly..... tutorials!  You could also read about the tear-tearkingly comical yet sorrowful tale of the making of this quilt here.

In the evening's when hubby get's home and the sewing machine is out of the equation, I entertain my fingers by indulging in a little flowersome crochet dabbling.  A woolly bouquet is slowly emerging....

I've finished my ladylike thread crocheted pillowcases, now I can play up my 50's housewifey side to the hilt in true style (housework not included).  Like my feelings on inches above, I'm experiencing a similar train of thought when it comes to U.S. crochet terms, they just seem to make more sense.  Try doubling and trebling states-style and you (may) see what I mean.  Go on have a go..

 

have a lovely put your feet up weekend!!  See you all next week.  Keep those fingers crossed though....

100th post quilt giveaway!!!!!

Oh yes! you heard right, I am giving away a quilt.  The quilt in the above photo to be precise, this is a lap quilt and measures 40 x 44 " or 103 x 113 cm, so just right for watching a bit of telly or for snuggling up in outside doing your knitting!!

 

Let me talk you through the design so you can think if you really want it or not.  The nucleus is a square embroidery of roses and forget-me-knots, all stitched up a la chain, running and french knot.

 

This is surrounded by a couple of borders of bluey squares...

 

After that I continued in my favorite scrap-as-you-go style and created more randomly patched strips to sew around and around until the quilt got to a nice size to snuggle in. 

So what do you think, would you like your postman to deliver this post to your door??  If you would all you need do is leave a comment under this post, in your comment tell me your name, where you're from and what you'd do with the quilt.  Just so you know, the winner wil be chosen randomly with a little help from the Random Integer Generator.

***If you'd like to double your chances of winning***, all you need do is post a line or two about this giveaway on your own blog with a link back to this post, you are then feel free to leave a second comment and have a second shot at winning.

Giveaway closes at at 9pm GMT on Monday 18th of May.  The winners name will be revealed sometime on Tuesday, so make sure you pop back to see.

For now enjoy the pics, leave a comment and Good Luck to all!!!!!!!

 

Your washing line could look like this.... Tulips not included.

 

And this could be your sofa, if you bought the same sofa, dolled it up and popped some forget-me-knots into a vase to display along side !!

post 99!!!!!

As you may gather from this post's title, I am merely one posty stones throw away from the event that is post 100 otherwise known as giveaway day!!!! Waltz in on Monday for more details!!!

Meanwhile back at the ranch that is quilting, I have been busy making my first two blocks for the Ten make two quilting bee.  These are the blocks for Shanna otherwise known as pink trees  and she wanted blocks with........pink trees in them!!!!!!!

Actually I'm a bit worried that these look a bit like they were knocked up in the 70's, or is it just me????  I made these by sort of crazy free-styling, just cutting and piecing, cutting and piecing, no pattern or paper piecing or anything.  Once I started I couldn't stop until they were done.  I even added row's of embroidered pink tree's.....

 

Meanwhile crochet crinoline's are continuing....

 

And now may I present floral friday (even though it's thursday),

 

Acquilega's, the crinoline ladies of the garden...

 

look at those gorgeously pleated bonnets..

 

Clambouring clemetis.

Don't forget to visit on Monday, do enjoy your weekend first!

decisions, decisions.....

Now that I've finished my quilty twins, the doors of a multitude of possibilities have been thrown wide open...What..shall..I.....get..on....with.........next.  Hobbies are amazing AND a maze, which path shall I gander down........

On the menu today..

thread crocheted crinoline ladies, always bobbing their heads around the waters of my possibilities...

variety itself in the realm of crocheted flowers...

roses..

fuschias...

pelargoniums, these still have to be stitched together on one stem.

a machine stitched hexagon quilt, still in the planning.

All possibilites, all calorie free and oh so yummy!!!

Asha had a super-fantabulous birthday, thanks for your many kind wishes.  She is in love with her new sewing machine which she had asked for but never imagined she would actually get!!

Well suppose I'd better decide what I'm going to do, first things first...kettle on!!!!!