Doodled Hexagons

I saw a series of posts on Jill Buckley's blog where she talks about her adventures in doodling and painting hexagons - I decided to try out this technique...using Inktense pencils and an ultra fine Sharpie on muslin...




(I will be adding the blue outer edge later...)

Here is my foray into this fascinating art form! (click on the link to go to the Photobucket album)
Doodled Hexagons



Couple of lessons learned:
 1. Wash the muslin before painting with water! Why this escaped me, I have no clue...the hexies shrank a wee bit...just enough to be annoying.

 2. Large blobs of water, when hit with an iron, make ghost shadows...blot before you iron, or wait til the piece dries... 

Over all, I like how my doodled hexagons turned out...and though its time-consuming, I could see doing this technique for a very special quilt...

Christmas 2015

Here is my annual rundown of projects I made for Christmas.


For the wee ones, I made butterflies (for the girls) and a dragonfly (for the boy):
















For the older kids, I made chalk board rollups and included a pack of colored chalk:



For my DD and her honey, I made fleece pillows:



For Mama, I made two pillows that match the lap robe I made for her birthday:
For Daddy I made a plaid flannel throw:



For all of the families, I made button pictures - saw a similar idea on FB and had to try it out - my initial attempt was so well received that I just had to make them for everyone! They are made from my Granny's button stash...each one is different (and I still have oodles of buttons left!)

Nesting Robin #1 - Chicks in Red Shoes

A few months ago, one of the ladies on the Quilting Forum issued a challenge - take an orphan block and make something with it by adding borders from scraps in our stash - she gave us a suggestion every month and what we did with the suggestion was up to us. Its called a Nesting Robin since it never gets mailed to someone else to work on..you do all of the work! Now..a Nesting Robin can get quite large, if you add as many rounds as there were suggestions...like I have said in earlier posts, I don't do many really large pieces - so instead of adding a whole border for each suggestion, I added just a side!

I found a  cute chicken panel in my stash that became the center of my Nesting Robin.
The first month was squares and rectangles..red and green checkerboard.

 I also did some ric-rac chicks (with red shoes) on the top and bottom of the panel ( click on the picture to make it larger to see them)

Second month was triangles - wonky triangle chicks

Third month was flora or fauna - yo-yo flowers

Fourth month was circles and ovals - appliqued chicks

Fifth month was 'If it has a name, its fair game' - that's the flying geese border

and Sixth month was Repeat something - which I repeated the yo-yo flowers from the third border in the corner stones. There were a couple of more months of suggestions, but my quilt was as large as I wanted, so I stopped!

Note: All the chicks have red shoes! And all of the buttons are from my Granny's stash except for the wee chick I bought at Rosie's Calico Cupboard on the Quilter's Run...she has red shoes too, courtesy of my Micron pen!

Finished off the binding on the Quilter's Run last weekend:

Tuscan Landscape

Many, many moons ago...I made the base for the Tuscan Landscape in a class at Road to CA with Martha Nordstrand...It went on a journey to visit the needles of some very talented quilters who also attend the Valley of the Sun Retreats..and finally made its way back home where it took me another year or so to finish off the embroidery and quilting and to decide on the border...

At last...here it is!

Quilters who contributed to this are Ami Krenzel, Kim Diggins and Kathi Eddy

Getting Back in the Saddle Again

Yikes..its been a VERY LONG DRY spell in these parts! Sorry for being absent so long.

I did attend Road to CA in January...took a couple of neat classes:

Tentmaker Work - I am almost done with this piece. It is going to be a pillow cover. This pic is how much I got done in the class...The class was taught by Egyptian Tent Makers..they are truly amazing applique-ers!

Images in Landscapes -
Loved this class but unfortunately, have not worked on this project very much since January. Class was in how to blowup a snapshot into a wall hanging sized quilt...which you then can add traditional blocks to make an interesting focal point..mine will not get too much bigger than this as I don't usually do very many 'big' quilts...but I am thinking of at least adding a border of flying geese..we will see how inspired I get! The small picture is the photo I started with and then enlarged...looks pretty darned close, eh?

Project Bag - This was a fun, quick bag class..I went to M&L a few weeks later and bought a yard of headliner fabric to make more of these. I think I even have enough of the clear plastic...just need time!

I did attend the annual Valley of the Sun Retreat in February:
One of the highlights was making this Mystery Quilt...I think EVERYONE loved the pattern and how their quilt came out! Still need to quilt it though...

And..just went on the annual So Cal Quilter's Run and stimulated the economy!

One of my additions is a Thread Director...supposed to help eliminate breakage when using metallic threads for FMQ...will have to play with that soon!