Finished the bottom row of my hexagon quilt

I finished the last floret for the bottom row of my hexagon quilt.  Pretty little blue floret.  This was floret number nine, but when I laid the row all out I did a shuffle.

Over a period of a few days, while having my morning tea I managed to completely assemble the florets of the bottom row.  The first floret and the last one do not have purple hexagons at the top, as this is where the left and right side of the borders will come in.  The purple hexagons act as a mini sashing around the florets and help to separate them from the centre diamonds.

Here is a picture of a close up of the bottom row.  This is a section in the middle.  I am liking how it is turning out.  Now I have the top and bottom rows done and I started on the florets for the left side.

This project is still in my grab and go container.  It goes with me everywhere.  I am not the type of person to just sit around.  I have to be doing something.  Even if it is just keeping my hands busy.

The new leader/ender

As I emptied the wooden box of leader/enders I decided to choose another project.  I am wanting to see some progress on all my quilts, but this one in particular is itching to be done.  It was going along well before it had to get put away.  I started it in Feb/13 when my daughter started hers.  Her 16-patch pinwheel quilt is done and is in the process of being quilted.

My 16-patch pinwheel quilt is coming out again.  I want this one to be done.  I think this one will be a give away quilt to someone in the family.  It will be a queen size quilt.  While I work on the Midnight Flight quilt I will use this 16-patch pinwheel quilt as the leader/ender.

The wooden box is full of parts.  This is all the squares that are already sewn into twosomes.  A light square and a dark square.  I even have them sorted into sets of eight.

Each set is going to be sewn into four patches and the four patches are to be sewn again into a larger four patch.  The picture below is what I am aiming for.  This is a 16-patch block.

There are a total of 97 16-patch blocks needed for the quilt centre.  I have seven of them completed so far.  We will see how fast they get whipped up.  When you do things as leader/enders it is amazing how quickly they get done, with little effort.  My problem ends up being, that when I start really getting excited about the progress of the leader/ender project, it ends up pushing the main work aside.  Later I forget which project is the main work and which is the leader/ender.

Right now though I am trying to finish some quilting.  I am working on the Small Wonders panel quilt and I want to finish my Mom's quilt that she is giving away for Christmas to one of her great-grandsons.

Later I will take a break from quilting to work on my main work, the Midnight Flight quilt.

Working on the Midnight Flight quilt

These last few days l've been needing some mindless sewing, for when I get home to keep my mind off things.  My father passed away.  It is a private time in my life.  I am as most quilters out there.  I am quilting to help deal with it.  There is nothing more I want to say about it.  I hope people will understand if my posts are at times sporadic.

I started sewing my leader/ender project, as a main project instead.  I emptied the container.  All the four patches are sewn into a four patch with the half square triangles.

I've paired off the pieced four patch blocks with their chevron pieces and the last four patch block to complete the sub block.  I will assemble these as leader/enders, or I may just keep working them as a main project.  Maybe try to get them though to the quilting stage.

I have eight sub blocks completed.  Four green and four blue blocks.  I need to make 84 blue sub blocks and 84 green sub blocks to complete the centre of the quilt top.

Two blues and two green blocks go together in a four patch style to make the final block.  I am not yet there.  This is a picture though of what the final block will look like.

I will need 42 final blocks to make up the centre of the quilt top.  That would make enough for a six blocks by seven blocks layout.

Carol's sampler wall hanging

My friend Carol from our Quilting Bee has been very busy.  I took the pictures a few weeks ago and forgot to post them. Sorry...

This is a small sampler wall hanging she made.  They are mini blocks done using paper piece method.  I am also sorry about the quality of the pictures.  I couldn't do anything about the lighting.  Just know that the colours are vibrant blues, green and fuchsia.  This first picture is the whole wall hanging.

The next few pictures are a close up of the blocks.  Great job Carol!  Way to go for finishes this year. You are really going to town on them!  Wish I could keep up.

This is a nice simple wall hanging to do to learn how to paper piece.  Carol did hers as a wall hanging, but if you wanted to you could use these blocks with others to make a large sampler quilt.

As for me, yesterday I went to my parents house and while staying with my dad I worked on my Tiny Town block.  I am almost done block number nine.  I will show you soon.

Progress on the Midnight Flight quilt

My container that sits beside my sewing machine is empty.  I have been making progress on the Midnight Flight quilt.  All the sections that contain the four-patch and half square triangles are now sewn together.  Both the blue and the green.  Only this part took me several hours.

I also have them sorted in the layout. They're ready to be sewn together.  These pieces are small so it takes a while to assemble them all.  The four patch individual squares finish at 1" square.  This full square finishes at 6". To make up the full top centre there are 84 green squares and 84 blue squares. So......needless to say there are still many hours of assembly ahead of me.

But for now I've cleaned up my space.  I have to put this stuff away, because I need to get started on the Tiny Town quilt.  I have to do block number eight.  It is due in two weeks, so I have to get cracking on it.

Progress on Tiny Town block number nine

Today I was able to finish two sections of block number nine.  Yay!!!  I only have one more section with had the schoolhouse.  This first one is the library.  It needs to be ironed, but you get the idea.  On Saturday I worked a bit on it.  I added the two left windows and the outlined details.  All that was left to do was the outline of the last two windows.  So, that is what I started with this morning while having my tea.

I started the swing section.  This block goes right beside the schoolhouse.  This one was pretty easy.  Even though easy it still took some time.  I finished around 2:00 pm and was working on both of them since 8:00 am.  Appliqué is not the type of quilt you want to choose when you have a deadline and want to have a quick finish.

I went to IKEA after dropping my daughter off at work later in the afternoon.  I picked up a drew thing on wheels for my quilt room.  I am going to attach my small ironing board to it for when I am sewing and need to press my blocks.  The one I have now is on a dinner tray, that is not very sturdy nor easy to move around when I need to get into my sewing machine table drawers.  I will have to show you when I am done.

It is getting late now and I am just waiting for the food on the BBQ to have dinner.  I bit late, so I don't think I will get anything else quilty wise done today.  I am glad for what I did get done.

Matching fabric and backing fabric

I just got back from running around for myself and my daughter.  I have about an hour before I have to go out again to drop her off with some friends to see a movie, so thought I would take the time to let you know what I have been up to.

First thing in the morning I am still trying to finish my block for Tiny Town.  We had the meeting today at 11:30 am.  Did get some done, but not all of it.  Now I have three weeks to catch up before the next meeting and complete the block for this month as well.  At least this months block is not big.

While at the quilt store after the meeting, we looked around.  I finally hit the jack pot.  I have been looking for a long time now for a match to replace the sashing for the old Dresden plate quilt I am reconstructing.  The sashing is in the picture below.

In this next picture you will see the fabric match that I found.  Not sure why the picture has lines in it, but the fabric does not.  They are both solid blue.  The old sashing is laying on top of the new fabric at the bottom of the picture.  In person, it is amazing just how close the colours are.  The old sashing is from a quilt dated from 1930-35.  I am very surprised that I found something this close.  I thought I would have to settle for something similar, so this is great.  Now I have a renewed interest in getting back to this quilt.

The reason that I am reconstructing the quilt is because the white background fabrics used were different flour sacks, that we're starting to disintegrate and because the person who put the quilt together did not match her sashings, the whole quilt is off kilter.  Don't you just love the half blocks in the bottom photo.  They must be for the quilt top row.  The row that gets tucked under the pillow.  No sense making a whole block if it is not going to be seen.  Waste not want not. This picture, is a picture, of a collage I made before I dismantled the quilt.

While I was looking around, I also found some more retro looking fabric to round off the ones that I have, to make the McCall's Retro Play quilt.  I will have to show them to you another time, as they are already in the wash.  Here is a picture of the fabric I found for the backing.  In person the white seems to show more than the black.  Must be the lighting.

Here was the picture of the fabrics I got last time.  I felt I needed some more orange, red, and pinks.  On top of those colours though I also found a few more blues and greens.  Can never have enough variety when making a scrappy quilt.

Now I am going to work some more on the blocks for Tiny Town.  Want to see how much I can get done before heading out again.  I think I will also work on it when I get back, before going to pick the girls up again from the theatres.

Enjoy!