Lots going on here. Vacations! Concerts! Lots of work at odd hours. So, I have not posted in a while but am feeling caught up so here's my news: quilting and other.
I needed a new project to take on our family trip to Washington. I had some fabric I bought at the quilt show in Denver in March. I met the greatest gals at this booth called
Grandma’s Quilts . Bonnie and Gloria helped me plow through all of their bins of cloth looking for coordinating and interesting cloth. They had tons of fat quarters! I went away with a bag full.
After looking at the other vendors, I returned to buy more! They were so great to talk with. They asked me what I was going to do with the cloth and I had a vague idea of making a fence post type quilt. Bonnie in particular encouraged me to think smaller. She showed me some of her work with 1 inch squares – it was impressive. I had not done really small work before and was kind of hesitant to commit – they were very persuasive. We agreed that I would email them in the future to tell them about my proposed design. The email clue would be “ok, you win” meaning that I had seen it their way. Well, for this new project, I needed something that I could hand sew during my daughters’ naps, in the car (maybe), on the plane (next to a 2 year old???), was easy to transport, could be done with cloth on hand and could be hand-sewn.
Quiltmania came through again with a beautiful design that met the criteria. I’m using mostly reds with some rusts, purples, and a few greens and blues. I need to make 184 of the hexagonal star shapes. I think this project will take me several years but so far, it is fun. The seam allowance is only 3/8” because of the convergence of so many seams at the center of the star. The first start took me about an hour but now I’m down to about 20 minutes. I find hand sewing incredibly relaxing. I like being able to sit and watch the Olympics now and generally being with my family in the evening.
