Pillowcase Dress Redux: Fab Four Hexy Style

 I made Tess another pillowcase dress and I think I did a much better job this time.  The armholes aren't nearly as huge as last time.

 I used the Fabulous Four fabric that I had left from making her birthday quilt and room deco.  I also added four hexies as a last-second detail.

 I'm so glad I thought to put those hexagons there as they were the first thing she noticed -- "It has hexies!" (Yes, both my kids know all the cool quilting lingo.)

It's a good fit and looks super cute on.  Now if it would only quit raining here and warm up (I had the heat on in the house the other day) then maybe she'll have a chance to wear it.  Cheers,  Riel

I Spy Planet Hexy Quilt Top

This is possibly the strangest quilt I've made yet, but I think I LOVE strange.  My son Eli (he's six) and I decided together to call this quilt I Spy Planet Hexy.  Those tall pointy triangles are towers.  All the hexies are piled ever-so-carefully on top of them. (Click any photo to enlarge if you wish)

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It is my own design.  I can't remember the thought process that led me to this, but it was a jump from idea to idea to idea before I came to Planet Hexy.

This quilt is for my son who will be finished kindergarten on June 24.  I must say I love a good milestone as an excuse to make another quilt.  *wink*

It is made all from scraps or stash.  I didn't buy any new fabric for it.  The hexies are I Spy scraps.  The towers are Kona scraps left from my I Spy mega quilt (back at my house now waiting for binding).  The sky background is fabric I had bought as a possibility for the background of The Selvage Snowman quilt, but it had been too light for that.  The grey rock fabric is some I had bought for a pillowcase but didn't use.

There are 146 one inch hexagons in it.  I'll probably add a few more to take it to 150.  I was wary of overdoing it with the hexies that are falling off the towers, but I think a few more wouldn't hurt anything, we'll see.

I am planning to quilt it myself.  I think I will do some very simple straight lines.  Unfortunately my sewing machine has had a bit of a bad attitude lately and has been throwing some thread-tangling tantrums, so it will need to go in for repair before I attempt any quilting.

You may remember that the I Spy hexies were supposed to be my summer travelling project.  Well, I'm still going to make more.  I have more ideas for them.  And my daughter Tess could always use her own hexy quilt.

Now an off topic message: Happy Birthday Dad!

And for some linky fun, I'm hanging out with other talented crafty sorts at {Sew} Modern Monday , Made by You Monday , Manic Monday ... and of course I have to party with Fabric Tuesday at Quiltstory.  Click any link to see piles of fabulous projects by bloggers from around the world!

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Thanks for stopping by!  Happy Quilting!

Sneak Peek: So About Those I-Spy Hexies I Was Making ...

 ... well, they got turned into a quilt.  I mean my son will be done kindergarten soon and he needed a quilt to celebrate that accomplishment, right?

 This quilt is nothing like the original idea I had for the hexies, but once I thought of doing this, the idea really took hold and I had to act!

 I'm not sure if the quilt is "high-concept" or just plain strange, but I do know my son and I both like it and it is certainly one of a kind ... you'll see what I mean tomorrow when I post the whole thing.  Fingers crossed the sun will come out later for some good photos.

Happy Sunday!  The yard is calling me!

HNIC: Hexy Night in Canada

 I made some more hexies.  These are supposed to be my summer travelling project for in the car, but they also seemed like a good little project to work on while watching the Stanley Cup finals.

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I added quite a few to my pile last night even though I put them away about midway through the second period.

 These are still for the I-Spy hexy quilt.  I am also adding some more abstract things to spy like shapes -- dots, squares, etc.

 I like that little pirate monkey.

Here are a lot of them on my design wall.  That little fussy cut school bus scrap is going in a mug rug I'm making for an end-of-year gift for the bus driver.

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There is sun here today!  Yay!  We are heading out to a waterfall this afternoon.  I hope the woods are dried out enough that it isn't too bad a walk for the kids. Happy Sunday!

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And P.S. This is my 200th post!  I will have a small giveaway to celebrate tomorrow!

Hey There Hexy Ladies

 Last post I mentioned that a few days ago we travelled to PEI.  Well, it takes 3.5 hours to drive from our place to Charlottetown, so I needed a little something to do on the drive ...

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Let me introduce these hexy ladies.  Those are 1 inch hexagons.

 I am making novelty I-Spy type hexies as my summer travel project.  They are just to make as we're driving somewhere.  I have an end project in mind, a hexagon I-Spy quilt.  It won't all be hexagons, but rather hexies appliqued in a pattern.  I have the idea in my head and I think it will work.  I probably need 192 hexagons for a good lap-sized quilt.

 It just takes the smallest of scraps to make these.  

Fun!  Do you have a summer travel project?

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Happy Quilting!
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I'm linking up with {Sew} Modern Monday and Made by You Monday
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And since this is my summer travel work in progress, I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday.

Snippets

I've only been sewing in the tiniest snippets of time lately -- ten or fifteen minutes here or there. I've actually been very busy working on a really exciting non-quilty project that I am looking forward to posting about once I have more confirmed details.

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But for now I thought I'd show some little photo snippets of the sewing stuff I've been doing.

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Above is some progress on my I Heart Selvage Quilting quilt. That is my selvage lattice. I had the idea to make part of the quilt look like an old-fashioned Valentine card with lace. Lace usually has lots of fancy curves in it that I didn't think would work well with selvages, so I went with straight-ahead lattice instead. I'm really pleased with it.

I've also been making some border bits for the same quilt.

Here's a pile in progress. These little bits are perfect to work on when I only have a few minutes to sew something.

This is a bit of progress on my blogland neighbourhood using the houses I won in a giveaway. That's my attempt at a street in the pic above. The yellow line was quite tricky to keep straight. It's a little under a 1/2 inch wide finished.

Then there are these things. I put the bobbin there for size comparison. I'm not making any more this small. This was just a little experiment (in frustration! ha!). My usual hexies are one inch hexies and those are the ones I will continue to make. I only work on them in the car when we're driving somewhere. It's a nice little take-along project.

I'm also trying to pick up a new good habit that I've read about on lots of other people's blogs. I am starting to cut my scraps into usable blocks and strips. I now have a bag of 4.5 inch squares, 5 inch squares and 2.5 inch strips.

And finally, just because this fabric was laying out when I had my camera on, here's some yardage I bought lately. I bought it off the clearance wall at my favourite fabric shopping spot. I'm really not too much of a flower person, but I am trying to expand my tastes. At $1.99/yard I figured I could take a chance.

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Thanks for stopping by!

Halloween Quilt Finish #3 -- Halloween Spidey String Quilt

So, the kids each have a Halloween quilt for their bed, and now I have one we can leave out on the couch. I showed this Halloween Spidey String Quilt a while back when it was just a top, but now it has been quilted (Thanks Tina!) and I put the binding on.

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It is no secret around here that I love Halloween, so yes, I also love this quilt. It is about 56 inches square. (I can never find my measuring tape.) I love the bright fabric in this. It shows a more festive fun side of Halloween I guess, rather than a spooky, scary one.

For the binding I used these little pumpkins. The binding strips are actually scraps left from the backing of my son's Halloween quilt.

When I posted about this quilt previously, I showed the template I made for the center spiderweb section. If you're interested in seeing it, just click here.
I always have these aspirations of taking home-decorating-magazine-type photos with perfectly arranged quilts that look like they were ever-so-casually tossed yet landed perfectly ... oh well, I tried ...

Just for fun, some Halloween hexies. I have no plan for these other than they go into my hexie bag with all the others for a "someday" project.

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Happy Weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

A Charming Discovery

A while back I found this Pampered Pooch charm pack at a yard sale. The fabrics are cute, colourful, and have nice small patterns on them.

It only takes a second to evenly divide a charm into four little squares.

These little squares are just the perfect size to make into 1 inch hexies without any further cutting or trimming.

They sew up super quick.

And they accumulate!

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I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all these yet, but sewing them from charm squares makes getting to this point speed right along! (I'm sure others have discovered this too, but if I hadn't already had this charm pack just hanging out in my stash, I don't know that it would have occurred to me.)

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Our provincial election is tomorrow, so I imagine I will make quite a few more of these little hexies watching the results come in on TV tomorrow night.

You Know How it Goes ...

First I made one ...

Then another ...

And of course a third ...

Couldn't stop there ...

Sewed some more ...

And more ....

I know everyone here understands and I don't need to explain myself. Right? ;-)
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On another note, thanks, and a big "Hello!" to my new followers. It really makes my day to see that number go up. Thanks so much for sharing in what I do!!!