Just a Little Update

Gee, it's once again been a while! I'm trying to get my act together, I swear I am.
I finally finished the Bright Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt I started back in 2007! You can see my original post here.
The very first photo I shared:

And here she is, more than 9 years later!

If you'd like to see her in real life, she'll be at the Des Moines Area Quilt Guild's show, which runs concurrently and in the same venue as AQS Quiltweek in Des Moines, October 5-8 2016.
A couple of progress and detail pics:

Daisy Chain Progress Report

I've been posting many photos of the Daisy Chain quilt on Instagram but none here, so here's an update.

Everything so far:

The center section almost done. I just need to finish the green border.

I have to make three more of these:

And a total of six of these:

These need another round of green:

Three more of these:

And much, much, MUCH more!

Happy Hexies

If you've been following Twiddletails on Instagram, you know that I've been working hard on a little hexagon quilt.
Back in August of 2014 (where does time go?), I was all set to organize a hex-along but then life got in the way.

When I was getting ready for our recent trip to Miami, I was looking for little handwork projects to take with and dug the project back out of the WIP bin.
The problem was I wasn't feeling the fabric choices any more.
Just too pastel-y for my current tastes.

I was a little loathe to start from scratch, but working on something you're not in love with isn't fun either. I liked some of the fabrics and thought I could maybe "undo" some of it and save part of my work. Not so. These hexies were made to stay!

So...I started over.
The pink flowers are staying.

The turquoises (and the greens) are changing.

I'm still planning a hex-along somewhere in the future but I feel like I should get a little further along first. Just in case I change my mind again.

Organization

When I posted pictures of my brand new ironing table on Instagram, I received quite a few comments about the little storage boxes/drawers underneath.

A photo posted by Twiddletails (@twiddletails) on Jan 3, 2016 at 10:28am PST

I had actually purchased those to use in the IKEA Kallax unit I have on the "office" side of my studio, but they're working so well for WIPs that I just ordered three more and thought maybe someone would like a little more information.

My main reason for ordering these originally was price. With discounts and free shipping I think I paid around $3 each originally. The last three were $5 a piece. They're nothing "fancy" but they do the job they're meant for. And I love the color.

I ordered them from homedecorators.com. They're Martha Stewart Living Fabric Drawers.

In other news, I just finished the Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt top and am now stuck as to what to do next. Stay tuned for a post requesting advice.

A photo posted by Twiddletails (@twiddletails) on Jan 13, 2016 at 9:16am PST

Hexies for Handwork

I like to keep my hands busy while watching television at night. I just bought a lovely new crochet pattern and REALLY want to jump into that project but remembered that one of my goals for the new year is to finish what I started. So...out came the hexie quilt. From 2007!

I had trouble deciding on a border back in September of 2014. I tried two or three different options and had to rip it out every time because I hated it. Now I'm going to pull the trigger, decide on a border and go for it. Hoping to have it done before its 9 year anniversary in June 2016.
Doesn't it look really pretty in the morning sun?

Border Decisions

All the "flowers" are attached to the Bright Grandmother's Flower Garden!
Next decision - borders.
I could use some advice on this...

I've scoured the web and came up with the following as my final choices
(The top border is cut off because I didn't think about borders when I designed the quilt in EQ7 and there doesn't seem to be a way to add rows to the top without redrawing the whole thing.):

The simplest choice and the one I'm leaning most strongly toward:

This one would lead to a very uneven border which, I think, would work great if I wanted to hang it on a wall but not so great for a useful quilt:

Too much green?

What do you think?

Quilting Grandmother's Flower Garden

The end is in sight for the Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt top. At least, I feel like it is. I've been working on it fairly diligently.
I'm thinking about hand quilting it, since it's hand pieced but I'm the world's worst hand quilter...

Anyhow, research has ensued and I thought I'd share a couple of photos from around the web.

A popular method is to shadow quilt in each and every little hexagon. That's a lot of quilting!

 It does make for a beautiful back though.

Another way is to outline the "flowers" and the "sashing".

There is a lot to be said for machine quilting too.

Decisions, decisions.

Eye Candy

Prepped hexies all lined up and ready to go.

The Quilt I Should be Working on

Remember this?

It's been an (off and on) ongoing project since June 2007! The last time I posted about it was in January 2011 although I have sporadically worked on it since then.

At the beginning of the year I promised myself that I'd finish it in time for our local guild's quilt show in November. Entries close on September 20th so, if I want to be at least 90% sure I can finish it by then, I'd better get a move on.

Much as I hate to, I think I'm going to have to put Daisy Chain aside for a bit.

Hexie Progress

I've been working on my newest hexie project the last couple of days. Keeping in mind that the completed quilt will have almost 5,000 hexies, I have a long way to go.