Monday Morning Star Count 2014/1

2014.
A fresh year stretches out before us.  Full of time, full of possibility.  I don't know about you, but the beginning of January always makes me hopeful and optimistic.  It's time to start something new, but not too new.  Let's just resolve to make a new habit of working on something we started before.

Welcome to the Monday Morning Star Count~
Put on  your thimbles, find a comfy spot, open your sewing kits and let's move forward.

What is the MMStarCount?  If you were reading last summer (when the book came out), I invited people to a weekly linky party here on my blog to share our progress on English paper pieced projects.  Quilters came every Monday to show off how many stars (or flowers, or any other shape) they had finished that week, and then visited all the other links and encouraged each other to keep going.  I'm starting it up again and hope to run the party every Monday in 2014.  Imagine the quilting we can get done in a year!

So often English paper piecing projects stall, get tossed aside, or forgotten about (wait, maybe that's just me because I have way too many of them).  Let's see if we can't create some motivation, build up some momentum, and maybe get some of these projects finished.

You don't have to be working on a big quilt-- there are plenty of smaller projects out there.  Pillows, pin cushions, pouches.. And you don't even have to post about the same EPP project week to week.  (isn't this terrible, I'm making the rules up as I go, and I expect to break them along the way..)
This week I'm showing off my diamond hex pillow, but that doesn't mean I can't jump around and show you something else in a few weeks.  Like I said, I've got a bunch of EPP in the works.. if I stop and count, I can think of 6 projects at various stages of piecing that I'd like to work on or finish this year.  (and no, that doesn't count all the odds and ends left over from book production.. I have lots more of those). 

So how can you link up?  It's easy, all you need is the URL of your progress post.  It can be a post on your blog (or on a group blog, like your guild's blog, if you don't have your own), a picture on Flickr, a picture on Instagram, or even Facebook, though I'm a little unclear on how to go and get URLs for FB pics, if someone can advise us, please comment!

On Flickr, click on the photo you want to add and at the bottom right there is a button that looks like a box with an arrow jumping out of it.  Click there and choose the second option "Grab the link", then copy and paste that URL into the linky below.

On Instagram, go to your profile page, click on the photo you want to add and at the bottom right there is a button with 3 dots.  Click there and copy the URL into the linky below.

Wherever you link in from, just remember to add some information about the project-- tally up how many shapes you have and if you know, tell us how many more you have to go.  Some patterns easily fall into countable units like diamond stars, hex diamonds, GFG rosettes, Rose stars, and more.  Other patterns are more.. free, so just tally them up in a way that makes sense for you.  If you don't know how large you want to make your piece yet, that's ok.  Check out what other people are working on and maybe that will help guide your design.

Ok, so here's what I've got to show..

This is the majority of a pillow top, which will eventually measure 16" square.  It's the sample for the EPP workshops I'm teaching this and next month.  I am in the process of joining the diamonds with rows of beige fillers and I've got 24 hexies and 2 half hexies left to go~  My hexies are 1" per side, btw.  Haven't decided yet how I'll quilt it.. maybe by next week I'll have a better idea. 

And as promised, here's my sewing kit.  Apparently I don't have a good daylight photo of this hexie sewing kit.  I thought I did, but it was from my *other* hexie project, sorry!  If I get a chance, I'll take a pic in the morning and edit the post.  Please do share pics of your sewing kits though!