Hexies and Ladder Stitch

I have had some questions asking how I do my Hexies with the ladder stitch.

First of all, for those who don't know what the ladder stitch is,

here is a graphic on how to do it

Of  course some of you might like to see it demonstrated and I found a Youtube on how to do it also.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CjOXMuTFXo

MY ladder stitch, however, isn't as neat as theirs but it still isn't too bad.

I tried to take small stitches and this is how it looked on the January 2014 BOM snowflake.

If you look closely, you'll see the stitching on the pattern.  I tried to match my thread colors so that "just in case" it showed it wouldn't be bad.  Of course it makes it harder to see now.  Sorry Angie.  :)

But overall the snowflake laid down nicely I thought.  

What do you think?

Give away notice!!!!!!! From A Quilting Reader's Garden

Have you ever read A Quilting Reader's Garden blog?  You should put it on your list of things to do if you don't follow it.  It's a great blog and guess what...... She is offering a give away.    Go read about it here:

http://quiltingreadersgarden.blogspot.com/2014/02/its-my-5th-year-blogging-anniversary.html?showComment=1393599009372#c7602958973232930276

She is offering various ways to increase your change to win (awesome isn't it?) and to give you an idea of one of the prizes....

So hop on over to her blog and see for yourself the wonderful work that she does and how generous she is with her give away.

I also want to offer Congrats to her for FIVE YEARS of blogging!  That's a great accomplishment.

I always look forward to reading what you post and have enjoyed your responses to my posts.  You offer us great support and keep me going when I get stuck on things or think I can't do something.

Keep up the great work.

Goodies in the mail and Hexie progress

What a wonderful week it has been....for mail.  LOL.  I had forgotten that I ordered some things and when they came in the mail this week it was like an unexpected surprise. First up was from Missouri Quilt Company.  I bought one of their charm packs called Mosaic and then noticed that they offered "scrap bags".  It was for $5 and I wondered what I would get so I decided to try it out.  That is what the second picture is.  It was really nice.  Obviously it was good fabric and they all weren't unusable sized pieces.

This is what that nice neat little wrapped package looked like once I unfolded it.

As you can see the sizes of their scraps aren't bad at all and there was a nice variety in the package.

THEN, last night, I got another surprise.  I had forgotten that I had ordered a book from Amazon.  I was going through my wishlist and found that one of the books on there happened to be on sale.  For less than $8 (including s/h) I managed to get my Jacobean Applique book that was on there.

I was a happy camper.  :) 

I also managed to sit down for a little bit and work on my January Hexie BOM.  I needed to because the March one will be posted soon and I'm behind.  The BOM calls for 1" hexies which I can do later if I want to but I'm doing mine larger...much larger.  I took a picture of the progress so far and you'll see the sizing of it since I put a 12" ruler in the picture for comparison.

This is the snowflake.  I still need to do the February heart one but that's ok.  I'm not in a hurry (not a terrible hurry anyway) and it's suppose to be fun to do.  It is fun and I'm enjoying working on it and that is the important part.  I've been doing the ladder stitch on it and not a whipped stitch.  It's my favorite new stitch for joining these.  I think it lays down flatter using the ladder stitch.

Sunday with Mom

I haven't really done any quilting tonight but I did manage to take a picture of mom this morning.  It wasn't as easy as it might seem.  Yes she is in a nursing home and confined to a wheel chair but that didn't stop her from scarfing down her breakfast.  Why?  Because the nursing staff had snagged some bacon for her and she LOVES bacon.  So much so that she will eat all the bacon you put in front of her she will only eat that and then say she is full.  Since we bring in Sunday breakfast for her we like her to eat what we bring.  LOL.  She is getting better.  She took half a strip of bacon and then put the rest of the plate (6 pieces) off to one side to eat my biscuits and gravy.  She was eating her biscuits and gravy at a steady pace and I'm surprised that I managed to snap the picture!

After that she made short work of the rest of the bacon.  LOL.

I also managed to take a picture of Edith (the pink bear without the eyes) who came to visit HER bear.  She hasn't named HER bear yet.  I named mine Edith because it is pink and mom LOVES pink.

Mom has now said that Edith is visiting her sister on her bed and needs to stay for a bit.

Then mom noticed that Edith doesn't have any eyes like her sister so now I am suppose to find some eyes and bring them so she can see her sister.  Gotta love her.  Her statement reminded me of when I would drop off my barbie dolls to grandma around Thanksgiving so they could go on a visit to Santa's Workshop (or if it was a teddy bear he could get repaired).  They were "on vacation" and would come back closer to Christmas.  It was great.  Then at Christmas time they got a whole new wardrobe from Santa!  If the bears needed repairing they were in the "hospital" and came back when they could.  Santa, evidently, only had the facilities to take care of bears.  No other stuffed animals were accepted.  LOL.

These bears were made by Nancy Asplund and are really adorable.  She sent them to me as a second santa exchange but she also sells them so if you are interested let me know and I'll pass on contact information.

Hexie Progress

Had a pretty busy day today but I finally sat down to watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (I love that movie) and picked up some of my Hexies to work on.  This is for the January Hexie BOM.  It's going to be a lot larger than I thought it would be since the Hexies are 4".  In the long run it will be good because the project, whatever it ends up being, will be larger and go faster.

Anyway, here is the progress so far.

I have two more rows to put on to the January snowflake.  The next row is a light blue.

Perhaps I shall finish the January block tomorrow.  We'll see.

Hmmm. Can I do this?

I was at Barnes and Nobles this weekend and looked through their selection of quilting and cross stitch magazines.  I won't buy a magazine unless I can find two or three, preferably three, patterns that I like or think I would make.

I was looking through...

Besides the cover picture shown, there was a block that I liked.

As I looked more closely, I figured out that the part that I like is REALLY half square triangles.  It was one of those ah ha moments.  It was one of the first times that I remember looking at a pattern and being able to recognize the different components of it.  Wow, I guess I really have grown as a quilter.

Well that was the extent of my quilting thinking this weekend.  I did, however do a lot of cooking.  I talk about it on my other blog.

http://bonni-gettinghealthy.blogspot.com/

The HEXIES are here! The HEXIES are here!

If you have been reading my posts, you will have noticed that I posted about The Hexie Blog.  Well I am doing that but am being totally lazy.  I am having Rose from Custom Quilt Kits cut out my hexies with her GO! and also picking out my fabric for me. It's about as stress free as I can get for this.  After sending her the link so she will know what to cut for me, she has also decided to do the Hexie BOM.  :)  There are a few changes in how I will be doing mine.  My hexies are going to be around 4".  Did I get that right?  You can see how large they are in one of the pictures.

First of all there is the January snowflake.

It is done in shades of blue.  These are the blues that Rose picked out for me.

For February, the pattern is for a heart.

Rose chose various shades of red fabric and I can't wait to start to work with them.

Another great thing that I was able to do was to have Rose cut me my templates.  So I have a nice bag of Hexie templates with a hole in them for easier removal.

Doesn't this sound almost too easy?  I can't wait to start.  Perhaps tonight while I'm watching tv?  I'll have to update you later on my progress.

I also received my next civil war block to work on which is to be flying geese.  I'll post progress on that later also.  Most of my sewing will be done on the weekend I think.

I hope everybody will have a great day and I'll talk to you later.  :)

Ups and Downs

What a hectic five days.  First my AUnt died and then one of my best friends died.  With all of that going on, I realize that I have to catch you up with the "other" things that have kept me busy.

First of all I think I have found my border fabric for the purple rail fence WH.  What do you think?

I am thinking of a 2" or a 2.5" border for it.  I found some more of the fabric so I can finish making those last two squares that I needed to.  Just need to see if the sewing machine works now.  More on that later.

The last time I was at Walmart I picked up a paper shredder (medium strength).  I....LOVE....IT!

It can take 4 pieces of paper without a problem and also chopped up an old credit card without any problems!  Now to finally get to work on shredding all my papers that I have around.

That wasn't the only thing I bought at Walmart.  I had an idea and started to work on putting it together.  I use one of the folding 6' tables for my sewing area.  I had the brainy idea that if I picked up another one, I could put them together and have this nice large sewing area to hold up quilts and fabric while I sew them.

So I opened it up and set it up and.......it won't work out.  It blocked my doorway into the other room too much.  So from there I wondered what would happen if I swapped my room around.  Oh my!  I thought my sewing area looked like a cyclone hit it when I had to move out the fabric to turn on the other base board heater.  NOW it looks like the cyclone invited all it's family over.  What should have been a relatively easy swap out ended up in a disaster.  When I was moving a sewing machine that I don't use any more, it fell on the floor.  (ok, I dropped it).  That one doesn't want to work any more but eventually I might get it to work.  I just need to take more time to look at it but can't do that until the room gets put back together.  But I wasn't using that one anyway so no biggie right?

Sigh...yes there is more to this story...

I decided to put my two 6" tables (opened up) into an "L" shape against the walls.  One is on the wall where the heater is but it is open so it shouldn't block heat if I have to turn it on again.  The other one is against the other wall.  Then I thought...Hmmmm.  The old table which had the old sewing machine on it might work to turn my "L" into a "U" shape.  Then I could sit in the middle and just scoot over whichever table I need to.  The old sewing table is about 2".   While I thought of it, I put my current sewing machine on it and moved a couple of things.  It was now time to move the sewing table.

Did I move the sewing machine first?  Of course not.  I only had to move it a yard.  3 easy feet was all.  Oh I moved it....but in that move the legs came off.  I forgot that the sewing table which hadn't been moved for 10 years had the same X type of legs that the old trays did.  One of the legs popped out and when I went to pop it back in, the other leg popped out.  Before I knew it, my current sewing machine FELL!  The extended tray popped off (as well as the thread) and I just stared in horror at it lying on the floor.  Is it working you may ask?  I don't know.  I'm afraid to find out.  I will check it out once I get the room put back in order.  It isn't on that table any more either.  I put it on the sturdier white 6" one.  I will plan on using that 2' table for my sewing area I think.

That's what my last couple of days looked like.  What about yours?

Remembering a friend...

My friend, Bryan Gibson, passed away this morning.  I don't mourn for him because I know he is out of pain and will now be able to do his creations without limitations placed on his human body.

In thinking back over the years that I have known Bryan, or BG as I usually called him by, I smiled and remembered our conversations.  I swear that he gave me some grey hairs but I wouldn't trade them for anything.  BG was a very talented individual and I enjoyed his artwork.  I thought I'd post some here.

When I first started gaming, BG was one of the people who opened up my eyes to a whole new set of friends.  I'm still friends with those people and they showed me that even though I haven't met most of them, they are some of the best people I can call friends.  With that experience I got the courage to step out of my comfort zone and become friends with a group of quilters and the rest, as they say, is history.

Siofra, my first character that he drew for me

Gudrun of the Greening

Theresa

This one is probably my all time favorite.

I hope you have enjoyed remembering my friend with me.

Being half Norwegian, I would be amiss if I did not send BG off with the Viking Prayer.

“Lo, there do I see my father.
Lo, there do I see my mother,
and my sisters, and my brothers.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people,
Back to the beginning!

Lo, they do call to me.
They bid me take my place among them,
In the halls of Valhalla!
Where the brave may live forever!”

― The Viking Prayer.

Going to Valhalla was reserved for the most valiant of warriors who had fought well.  Over the past week BG fought bravely and strongly and deserves to be in Valhalla where he can show off his drinking horns that he made and tell tales to all who would listen.





- *

*See you in Valhalla.  Save me a seat in the mead hall. 

Of course my syntex with the runes might not be totally correct but then BG knows I'm not a total perfectionist and it will be close enough.  Besides it would him something to shake his head over.