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I can’t help it. I just love hexagons!

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

In addition to the super rad vintage hex quilt I picked up while thrifting a while ago, I also found a bag of 106 canvassy white squares for $3. (This is a huge deal in my neck of the woods. Thrift stores around here aren’t always very thrifty.) So I’m using them to back my little hexy flowers.

I really had no intention of making a hexagon quilt. Ever. In my life. But I guess Goodwill decided it was meant to be?

I love binding things so much, I sometimes toy with the idea of starting a binding service. Does that even make sense?

March was Betty Ninja’s month to send fabrics for the Threads Together Quilting Bee, which was exciting for me, because I haven’t made any quilting bee blocks yet!

She requested triangles a la this quilt, and, at the risk of being a bit witchy, I have to admit I did not feel like doing that. At first.

But one of the reasons I’ve never tired of quilting in almost 15 years is that, even with restrictions, there’s always room for creativity.

I was concerned about the amount of background fabric I had to spread over two blocks, so rather than paper piece, I decided to use fabric-conserving half-square triangles, and mix up the placement of the red for movement.

Block #2 was truly an effort in maximizing what little background fabric I had left. I added a bit of forest floor, a bit of night sky, and some gray fabric from my own scrap pile to attempt a 12″ block. I failed, but Betty’s got more gray at home, so I’d better let her deal with it.

Remember how I said I didn’t feel like making these blocks? Not only am I glad I powered through; I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a triangle quilt in my future.

Does somebody have time to drop by this afternoon and slap my wrist with a ruler?

And can you leave the ruler? Some leprechaun stole all of mine when I was busy making triangles….

To see more progress on Betty’s quilt, check out the Threads Together Group Photo Pool.

I think my cleaning and organizational kick has really paid off - in the form of a bunch of 9-patch blocks I made about 10 years ago! I found them all crumpled in with some forgotten scraps and supplies. I should take better care of my things.

I should start by remembering I have said things.

I’m really excited to integrate these into my sampler quilt, which hasn’t grown since I last posted about it.

It’s Quilt Monday on a Tuesday, y’all - the very best kind!

I know three straight days of work sort flies in the face of the whole Labor Day concept, but, sometimes, it’s the getting up and getting out, the preparing a face to meet the faces that you meet that’s the real effort.

Between Saturday morning and Monday night, I sewed 5 aprons, cut out 12 more, cut and sewed two quilt tops, finished tying the Summer Breeze quilt, and machine quilted a top I made something like three years ago. I still managed to host a Civ 4 marathon, have dinner with neighbors, and read half a book on the Carter Family.

I’m not bragging so much as listing the virtues of a 72-hour life drop-out. If you want to get stuff done, do nothing.

And now, show and tell:

The Summer Breeze Quilt, dropped carelessly on the floor to reveal the vintage sheet I used for the back. I’m getting so much more joy (is that possible???) out of working on quilts when I use these vintage sheets. I don’t know if it’s the extra shot of color, or just the sense of history I feel when I look at the old-fashioned prints. The sense of belonging in my home is already palpable, like it’s been around for 10 years, and not just a month. And I haven’t even bound this guy! Binding, I’m afraid, will have to be put off until the weather cools. Or until I can’t wait any longer. So either autumn, or, like, tonight.

From Summer Breeze - which I had to finish first, or risk working *gasp* out of season - I moved on to playing around with some of my new fabrics. I have a TON of fabric right now, and while I’d love to get in on the “destash” movement everyone is talking about, I paid for this, and, darn it all, I’m gonna make product with it. I decided to put together a couple of simple smaller quilts, which, at about 42 inches square, actually make a fairly handy picnic blanket. We’ve been taking this throw to the park and beach, and it’s perfect for two.

I have ideas for a veritable plethora of these in mind. They are simple to sew, which means I can enlist the elves to help me make some for Christmas gifts, and they aren’t the yardage piglets that a lot of quilts are, which means I can incorporate lots of fun things from my stash without buying anything beyond batting. (And maybe some binding fabric, because I’m so picky about scale, and color, and making a nice, neat frame for the whole thing….)

But for now, I have two tops. Saturday’s:

(Why, oh why, did I fold it before taking a pic??? Close-up of fabrics here.)

and Sunday’s:

(Notice that the carpet is absolutely filthy with scraps and thread ends. Mark of a weekend well spent.)

Being on the roll that I was, I seriously considered putting together another top on Monday, to make it a long weekend trifecta. Good idea, but I think I’ll save it for another long weekend. (Or even do two a weekend till my head explodes!) But I had an itch to do some machine quilting, preferably on a quilt I was free to completely wreck. My machine quilting can use a little practice. And so I practiced.

I really practiced quite a lot.

This is yet another summery quilt that I just wanted to be done with. I made the top in about an hour in something like the summer of ‘05, and it’s amazing how letting a project languish like that just knocks it right off your to-do list.

Until, suddenly, you’re sending your husband to the hardware store for the widest roll of masking tape they have, because you cannot possibly put off the basting for the ten minutes it will take to walk to Ace yourself.

Good times.

Good, good times.

Way, way behind in the stat quilt-along. Don’t even know when I made this block, actually, just that I made it imperfectly, and needed to fix it. I found it on my camera, and decided to plaster it up here, as a little reminder to myself, to keep at it, and keep at it, and keep at it till it’s done.

Who here remembers the Seedpod quilt block swap?

I finally finished my quilt. On a Monday morning, no less! I’d been quilting a block or two ever day for a couple of weeks, until - and I can’t believe this surprised me - there were none left!

The patchwork binding is left over from the pieced back of the quilt, and the fuzzy blur is none other than Ms. Hatbox. She makes a beeline for any quilt or top I lay down, anywhere, and rolls frantically around, so as to spread as much hair and dander as possible.

She calmed down considerably when I told her she could stay.

Check it out!

I was so surprised to see one of my own images on the Craft blog, I spent a whole minute freaking out over the fact that somebody had stolen my idea for a wholecloth in this pattern. But nope; it was a for-real shout-out for Ms. Jennicakes.

Heading on vacation tomorrow morning. Just when I’d gotten a big shot in the arm. Figures

Thanks, Jen and Natalie!