Hexagons and Yoyos

When Mom, Linda Branock, died, I pretty much quit quilting. She had helped me get started on this, so now, almost 4 years after she died, I am working on the quilt she wanted to see me finish.

I have it laid out, and I am working to applique the blue hexagons onto the brown and lavender frame strips. I sit on the floor to stitch it. Yep, it is killing my body, but I don't want to lift it and have the edges to shift. I used spray baste (and pins), but you never know. 

It took me a minute to figure if I wanted the brown or the green frame (you can just see it at the sides of the blue hexagons), but I think the brown looks really good. Both the brown and green are from Mom's Lilac Hill collection of fabrics. (http://www.unitednotions.com/fcc_lilac_hill.pdf)

That was a lovely line of prints. (*sigh*)

 This is a close up of the hexagons (they still have their papers in). I was considering a faded text fabric, but when I put it on the design wall, it looked wrong. Maybe I'll use it in the borders. I have not decided about border fabric, but I laid some portions out (first photo) to see what might go.

AND here is the yoyo shawl I am calling finished. It has 966 yoyos. Don't ask how long it took me; all I can say is "years."

 Holler at me....I don't know if anyone still reads blogs. I do sometimes!

Up, Down, All Around

The Hexagon Hip Hop quilt with Brannock & Patek's Audra's Iris Garden  (Moda) is a finished quilt top.

I struggled with the fancy border, so it doesn't exactly match the pattern in Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott, but that's what quilters do: improvise!(I like it well enough for all the pouting I did about my mistakes.) I was having a snit-fit over sewing, unsewing and screwing up when Joey knocked over my "design wall" and ironing board. Inspiration hit me as I was cleaning up the mess: unstitch the ends of the remaining two borders and add more triangle units and recut the corner pieces. Fine!

The board Joey knocked over is a heavy duty ironing board I found at an estate sale. A young man carried it to the car for me and asked "does it work?" Well heck. I never thought an ironing board wouldn't work, but I answered I would find out when I got home. Driving away I thought why wait, so I pulled over into a cul-de-sac, pulled the board out of the car and set it up. Good deal; works fine. Wait. OMG, I can not fold it back up! I jiggled, felt around, turned it over, banged on it; I was about to have a panic attack thinking I would just have to leave it there in the middle of the cul-de-sac when whomp! Down it went, and I didn't even know what I'd done. (How freaking embarrassing.)

Here's Joey down on the floor on the quilt top seeing if I resolved the problems I was having; it passed his inspection.

Joey went up on the top shelf to snooze on the fusible stuff I need to cut for the bag.

Looks peaceful. I hate to wake him up and move him.

'Cause now he is down on my cutting table thinking he'll give a hand at cutting out. Some help he is, too. I had to put him out in the hall and close the door so I could work.

While I was working and moving things around in the sewing room, I discovered one of my Goodwill purchases will make a wonderful back to my Bento Box quilt. (I love when that happens!)

I got all the outer and inner parts of the bag cut when I noticed it was 2:45 a.m. I lose track of time when I play in my sewing room.

Joe knew it was time to go to bed. I found him down on the floor in the cat crate all curled up on an old quilt. (The cat crate was out because I took Kitten in to the vet to have her eye looked at; I was not sure if it was infected or not, but all is well. I certainly don't want to take chances with the only eye she has!)

Sunday Night Quickie

 I don't remember putting this "Bento Box" quilt on the blog. If I did, forgive me.  I worked on it while I was spending time in Mom's (Linda Brannock's) studio last month.

 I took the course from Jean Ann Wright at the Georgia Quilt Show. It was fun to select border fabrics from Mom's stash. (She has ever so much to choose from.)

I liked working on it enough to consider making a second one.

 We got a new Hancock's fabric store by my house. I had to go look around to see what they had. I found some reproduction Victoria and Albert fabric by David Textiles. 

The "David" fabric is not the quality I prefer, but the blues (below) are from Blue Hill. La-Te-Da! I love the hand; soft yet dense and smooth.

The previous two quilt tops complete, I found myself able to start the top I told Mom I was going to make two or three months ago. I wanted to work with Audra's Iris Garden by Brannock and Patek.

I started cutting. I just love these flowers. I noticed I have "Audra's" but I also have "Awakening." I didn't realize I have mixed two lines "Together." Ha. That was clever, right?

If you didn't get it, don't worry over it. Pretty lame. I want to make "Hexagon Hip Hop" from the pretty iris fabric.

 I've done the hexies by hand before, but these are large and are constructed from half-hexagons.

The instructions have been easy to follow, but I had to give up cutting because someone got in my way.

I won't say who, but I think you can figure it out.