Monday Morning Star Count, July 27, 2015

Travel Quilt #5 got a lot of attention this week..
I've been home with the kids for the last bit of my summer break so I stitched at the library, in the yard as Jack played play-doh, on the couch with George as he played games on my tablet... (my phone was never around to take action shots though)
And by the weekend, I was ready to stitch two large sections together.

I made enough sashing strips to go along a diagonal row of hex-diamonds so I attached that to the smaller section first before joining the row to the bottom segment of the quilt top.  I didn't want the weight of the sections to pull too much as I was stitching so I lined up my hexies and joined the segments from the middle, working my way to either end.

I have laid out the remainder of the top row a hundred times but never get around to piecing it to the strip.. I decided this weekend just to join what I had so I could free up templates and not worry so much about color placement decisions (what comes after the brown hex-diamond has changed several times.. most recently I want to use a purple unit which isn't actually pieced yet...)

 I like how it looks so far.  I have a stack of completed hex-diamond units (sorry, didn't count them before the post) but they all seem to have a very similarly toned outer ring.. I think this bottom corner is so colorful, and then the rest are going to be low volume/white prints?  Yes, I'm getting frustrated with this a little.  I want to make progress but it's slow.  The units are easy enough to get done, but the sashing and assembly keeps tripping me up.  Didn't trip Jack though, he had a great time spinning around on it during my photo shoot.

I'm sure there will be much more time for EPP this week.  What were you able to get done since last time?  Show us!!

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Monday Morning Star Count 2014/22

I laid them all out and I've got 12 units done so far.  This is good.  I wanted 20 done before the summer, but I hadn't anticipated taking a break to finish the tiny  hexie stars, so... I'm calling this successful progress.  And technically summer doesn't start for another 3 weeks.  Maybe I'll actually make it to 20 by then?

 Thank you all for your kind words, thoughts, emails and comments from my last post.  Acceptance is coming, slowly.  This week I took the backing fabric scraps and fussy cut some birds for my next diamond.  There will be a medium turquoise between the yellow and white fabrics.

I like this project because I can focus a lot on fabric choice.  I don't know if I could make a quilt with just 2 or 3 fabrics in it.. I have before (wait, no, that had 4 fabrics in the top), but that quilt had different layers of meaning, making it served a different purpose.  Multi-fabric stash quilts are so satisfying for me these days.. some might say they're scrap quilts, but I know I cut a lot of these hexies from yardage, so it isn't quite a scrap quilt for me.  Do you follow my distinction?  Does that make sense to anybody else?

Anyway.. it's your turn.  Let's see what you all have to say about your progress, what small goals can we set before the first day of summer?

Monday Morning Star Count 2014/21

It's still Monday, but it's far from morning..
we're almost done with our road trip and I've got a few hex-diamonds to show for it..

I don't have an exact count today... all of the units are stuffed into a plastic bag under the front seat of the car.  I want to start joining them so I'll have to lay them out soon.  Pics to follow shortly on Instagram..

I crammed an awful lot of quilty goodness into this trip and each day deserves its own blog post, but let's see when and if I've got the time to jot them all down.  Give me a few days to sort my photos and we'll see what I come up with.
I would have posted this on time, but our internet connection (and free time) has been sporatic on this trip.  I'd like to say things will be back to normal next week, but we're entering our Summer-mode where routines get tossed out the window and we hit the road (or air, or beach) running.  I crave routine though, so I'll do my best to keep MMStarCounts on track.  A little encouragement from the crowd never hurts..

Who wants to show us what you've got?

Monday Morning Star Count 2014/9

135 stars.. that's how many are in Merrill's quilt.

 She brought it over this weekend with some fabric and a deal-- if I bind it, I can bring it along for my trunk shows.  I've got a lecture/trunkshow coming up on Tuesday, so it was pretty easy to agree to this idea.
The quilt is for Sabrina, who proudly pointed out fabrics to George.  I, of course, loved seeing the two of them pour over it like true quilters' children.  You can read more about the quilt in Merrill's guest post here.

I am so lucky to get to keep this quilt in my house for a while, it brightens up the whole living room!  We made the quilts simultaneously and even though there are a lot of shared fabrics between the two, they look completely different (to me anyway, what do you think?).  There is a pic of them side by side here.  

For this week's progress report, I have bits and pieces to show.. most of diamond #4 and the start of #5.. 

I may be teaching this pattern at a workshop next weekend, so I need some "in progress" pieces to explain how I assemble the block.  Yeah, that's a bad excuse, but I'm sticking with it..

Please tell me you have all been more productive?

 

I bet you could make one of these faster than me...

A finish on Friday?!  I didn't even plan it this time.  (this should have been done soooo long ago).  Happily linking up with Crazymomquilts today~

Here is my Diamond Hex pillow, all done!  And a good thing too, the workshop for Long Island Quilters Society is on Monday.  If you're free Monday during the day and you're in the New York area, why not consider coming out to join us?  Email me and I'll put you in touch with the guild's program coordinator.  There are still plenty of spots available.

When the guild contacted me for a lecture/workshop in October and I started thinking about a sample, I immediately went to my comfort colors-- blues, greens, browns.  But then I asked George what colors he would choose, and he pulled pink, pink, pink.  I trusted his instinct and this is perfect for Valentine's season and the beginning of spring.  Sure, it's only 18F in NY today, but I'm thinking warmer thoughts..

Monday Morning Star Count 2014/2

Did you get a chance to click around and see all the beautiful projects we linked up last week?  It's amazing, I love seeing what you are all working on.

For me, I finished the pink hex diamond pillow top front, and I'm trying to find the time to baste and quilt it.. this is what it looks like from the back:

This weekend I pulled out some UFOs and decided to try to turn this one into a sewing machine cover.  It's almost the right size, just needs one complete ring and the edges finished on the top two.

Unfortunately, the second yellow fabric is in my sewing cabinet at MIL's house in Athens, and the light blue.. I think I gave it away in my destash last summer.  It's alright by me though, I don't mind substitutions at all.
How do you feel about them?  If you find a UFO but can't find the exact same fabrics to finish it, will you fill in or abandon it?  Just curious.

Ok, now let's see who's been stitching this week..
Remember, Instagram and flickr pics are welcome too!!

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!