It's Hexie Friday! 6/7/13

I've been working on my first block for my hexie quilt. I've been auditioning backgrounds, vases, handles, leaf colors and such. Then I had to make the layout template to use for positioning. That requires I make a copy of the block placement in the magazine. This quilt is from an old issue of Quilter's Newsletter. Here's what I've settled on:

 

The photo was taken at night so the color isn't as true as it could be, but tomorrow starts June craziness, so it's post now or not til next Monday - LOL.  The flowers are placed exactly as the pattern set them, but I'm thinking the yellow one should be to the left a little bit to balance. Any comments?  I would love to see your Hexie project or otherwise.  It will be my treat to see and visit your loveliness as a respite from running around. Here's the linky:

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Applique Thursday

First last week's winner is Val S of Brisbane, Australia. Congratulations Val!  Send me your mailing address and I'll send your book.  Note: Val is a no-reply blogger.  I'll give her a few days to get back to me before I have random.org generate a new number winner.

Sadly, I've come to the end of my pile of giveaway books.  It's been so much fun meeting new people and sharing the quilting magic in books.  I may start again once I've gone through my sewing room this summer with patterns, notions or ??  I'll see what goodies I find as I continue to bring order and grace to my creative space.  I have a long way to go.  I'll still be sharing applique - this is one of the best ways I've found to keep me going forward on it by sharing it with you. Here's hoping you'll still come by and share your eye candy each week - doesn't have to be a finish or applique - you know I love flowers and books too!

Now for this week's applique - a little more done on my Whimsical block:

This flower was a long time getting together as I kept forgetting to reverse petals, double the fabric so the dots wouldn't show, etc, but finally this one is done.  One more flower to go.
Would love to see what you're up to!

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Method out of Madness WOW

After umpteen seam rippings on the secret quilt layout, I knew I needed a method to get a handle on getting the squares sewn together in a chain without ruining the layout.  I use to meticulously put labels on each piece and that helped, but added time to the process. I didn't want to label 144 squares, so after some sit down and look at the quilt time - I found an easier way (I'm sure others have probably figured this out, so probably not a new thing - what is?). It worked with the secret quilt and I'm now using it to put together my pink plaid/gingham quilt.  So first I laid out the units and decided which went where.

Then I labeled the each first unit in leftmost column with a letter - in this case it turned out A-J.  I just labeled that one column.  Then I flipped the unit to the right of it on top of the labeled one and got my pairs. I carried the pile to my machine and chain pieced them keeping the labeled unit on the left to let me know to sew the right edge of the units. Worked like a charm, all the correct seams were sewn.

 

 

Then I took my sewn pairs and laid them back in my layout. 

 

Now I moved the labels to the third unit from the left of each row. You can see two moved in this photo.  Flipped the fourth unit to the left on top of third and did the next column - and on across the 8 columns that make up this top - a method out of the madness of mixed up seams to sew!

 

I'm linking to Esther's WOW. She's getting ready to release her free BOM for 2013.  Do visit and see what lovely she has in store for us.