December Sewing in Review

I started out December strong, well the first hour of it! I finished this purse in the wee hours of December 1. It's the Barbados bag and I'll be teaching it in February. I have one started for me, but just didn't find the time to get it made.

Then the month went rather south and I didn't get a whole lot accomplished. We were gone, working our 3rd job, and sick for most of the month. I did finish this Day Break Sample for a class I plan to teach in January. It's a fun little block to make and the class will be a starting point for the whole quilt if anyone is interested. I'm teaching a series of classes this year using the Hex And More Ruler and the Sidekick Ruler. This uses both.

I've always wanted to do a Swoon class, so I finally decided to do it as a one block class. That way people can make a wall hanging or table topper, before committing to the whole quilt. Since the class is during Stock Show I made a western fabric sample, but I also have modern fabric blocks done as well. I still love this block and now that I've made several I've gotten it figured out how to press to make them easier.

I also made this hexie ornament for an exchange with friends. It didn't turn out how I expected, but it was okay.

I worked a lot on my Buggy Barn hexies during work breaks and have almost all the sashing done. Now I need to figure out how I will finish it.

For our niece and nephews this year I made embroidered towels with the kids names. I think they turned out pretty cool. Mikaela helped pick the colors and she has decided she wants one too, so I'll have to get on that. They are quick and easy to do once I make up my mind to set up the embroidery machine.

I was playing with the V5 software when I was making the towels and designed this sweatshirt for Grandma Leslie.

Then I screwed up and forgot to change the design, so I made a second one for Grandma Ann.

Then I made the one I had originally intended for Grandma Ann. It has all 5 grandkids on it. Ed and Steph are expecting in March and I'll try to add the new baby's name, if it will fit. Someone said they just need to plan to only use either the G or D. Grandma Ann loves to accessorize, so hers have some jewelry she plans to wear with them. The 3 sweatshirts are all from my mom's "stash" of embroidery items, so I just went with the sizes that fit.

One of the quilt shops in town is closing and last week I went for their 50% off stuff. I picked up a new stashbuster ruler, a wall hanging hanger, and some yellow batik that will match some horse batik I already have.

For Christmas I received awesome gifts from my little bro and his fiance. Two rulers, a seam ripper and nippers. It was so exciting to get quilty gifts.

I needed a quick gift, so I made up a fleece blanket with embroidery on it. I plan to give it later this week and then will share the embroidery. I didn't have time to commit to a quilt, so a blanket will do for now.

This year I won the staff UFO finish competition. Per capita we beat the customers and Tammy gave me this great box. It already has my mini professional tote in it. It's a WIP that will turn into a UFO tomorrow unless I get some major sewing time tonight. I have the front and back made. The pattern is quite a bit different than the full size professional tote, so I am learning a lot and ripping a lot when I don't read the directions quite right. It's definitely a pattern where people will want to take a class to make it.


With only 40 hours in so far this month, I just haven't gotten a lot accomplished. Looking back I didn't do too bad though. I have a quilt retreat coming up in January and then sewing with friends in February, so I hope to get more accomplished. I have 40+ UFO's on my list for this year, so I hope to get it down to under 10.

October Lovely Year of Finishes Goal Met and 26 Finishes!

A Lovely Year of Finishes Goal Met! + A Massive Amount of UFO's finished!


This month my goal in the Lovely Year of Finishes was this UFO top of my moms. It was just blocks, made in the wrong size and didn't work the way the pattern said. My goal was to make the top. I quickly made the top in a night or two, then another night to make the back and I was on a role. I put it with batting and one of the middle weekends this month I quilted it along with 5 other quilt tops. I finished the binding and now have a finished quilt for when someone needs it. It does not have a home yet, but instead of just getting the top done as was my original goal, I finished the entire quilt.


Other goals included:
Giveaway bag-3 done
Highchair sample-done
The Maze Sample-done
Rubic Star Center -done
Swoon Block- done
Star Surround Top - Quilt done

The Maze Sample top was made and turned in.

The high chair sample was made and it works great.

I made 3 bags, 1 for a giveaway and 2 for me. I love the smaller size and have started using them for my binding bag and hexie bag.


I pulled out this pink/brown table topper and made it in one night, checked off my UFO list for the month.

I also pulled out the scraps left from the Zoo Parade an made this baby quilt. It is also finished!

I picked up the Confetti baby quilt top and got it quilted and the binding applied. I lost the fabric I thought I had to make the binding, but had enough of the backing to make binding.
















I also picked up the Twirl quilt and got it quilted and the binding on. It feels great to have it done as it has been a UFO for way too long!

I took the opportunity to finish my last Swoon block at Club Sew

I pulled out and pieced this 9 patch/snowball quilt top from 2009. It was quilted and the binding is on.

I finished the Star Surround top and was able to get it quilted and the binding on.

I took this road grader panel and turned it into a little boys play mat.

I made this quilt in 1 evening for my nephew's 1st birthday.

I pulled out mom's 60* table topper and turned it into 2 reversible table toppers. A pastel one:

A 60* table runner, using up the last of the grader fabric.

I made a reversible placement, another one of mom's ufo's.

A treat bag kit made

The other reversible table topper

An EZ wallet kit

I made 3 UFO flannel baby blankets.

I took the tumblers and pieced them into a top and then quilted and bound it this week. This was my major finish for the week.

I also finished the adorning schlep UFO bag. It took me a couple hours, but has been cut out for a couple years.

I also pieced this mini merry go round quilt top. I have the batting and backing ready to quilt it, but too much going on this week to get it done. I would like to work on quilting feathers, so may use this for practice.


I also made the Rubic Star into a top. I am working on the next border, but have not spent much time on it. I've been too busy doing hand sewn binding. I also quilted some on the Wolf quilt, but need to do more on the Bernina, so I am waiting until I have time to play.

The blocks I made for a friendship quilt for one of our teachers.


This massive blizzard the first weekend made me stop and realize how no power really affects a family. I feel so blessed to have survived and be able to move forward. I feel very fortunate we did not lose anything, including all the milk I have frozen for the last year. It was stored at my dad's and they lost everything in their freezer. I had picked up the milk 2 weeks before the storm. If you've nursed/pumped you know how vital the milk is. As I am transitioning Mathew and quitting nursing, I am so thankful the 30+ bags of milk were saved.  The Ranchers Relief Fund is still accepting donations for all those who lost their livelihoods. My dad and his wife lost 36 horses and have 11 left. They think there may be one more missing, but can't find it. This storm was outrageous. I spent the 3 days with my kids and husband, playing and sleeping and relaxing. I could have hand sewn, but I didn't. We used the camping supplies to cook and warm the house when needed. Luckily it was in October, so it wasn't as cold as it would have been in January.

This was an amazing month for me! I had 18 UFO finishes, 26 total finishes, 4 new projects, a few blocks for a friendship quilt, and lots of relief in seeing the UFO's checked off the list.
Next month I plan to work on Christmas presents and a UFO or two. I don't think I'll have as much time for sewing since Paul will be deer hunting, but I'll try my best.

Productive October Sewing

This month has been extremely productive, even though we were in a major blizzard and without power last Friday and Saturday. Sunday night and Monday I was able to work on this quilt called the Maze. The pattern was really fun to make, but the directions were a bit confusing. I had to really follow along and pay close attention to my cutting to make sure it worked out the way it was supposed to. I love this top and it's going to be kitted at the shop.

The first week of October I made this travel high chair. It's made out of PUL and it is awesome. I think I need to make one for Mathew, as this is a sample for the store.

Sunday night I needed something quick and easy to make, so I pulled out these little bags and worked on them. I just used up some leftover scraps, so they are random sized, but they will be given away. I did keep the purple one for a small travel bag as the one I made is a bit to big, so I put too much in it and it won't fit in my purse. This way I can limit how much I take. One or two Ahhhh's will fit in it.

Monday night I put together this quilt top that was a UFO of my mom's. It's my goal for the Lovely Year of Finishes as well as the challenge in the Hexie BC group. I wasn't sure about borders, but without I can finish it on the frame now, so I left them off.

Tuesday night I went to town and finished the last block of the Star Surround Quilt Top. All the pieces were made, so it went together faster than I expected.

I also pieced the backing for the pink ribbon UFO. It's actually more of a white background, but it will work. The fabric is all from the same line an d uses up most of what mom had bought for the quilt. I still have some scraps/stash from it, but it will be done soon.

Last night I was supposed to have my graduate class, but due to a family emergency she postponed it to tonight and I had some extra time on my hands. I finished putting together the Star Surround top. It turned out really cool and will make a great baby quilt or wall hanging. I'm not sure which, so I guess I'll wait until it is finished.

I picked up a couple flimsy samples at the shop that need quilted so I can get them off my UFO list. I set to work last night and made backs, cut batting, and pulled the king tut/bottomline thread so I am ready to have a quilting marathon. Here's my stack, with my thread on top. The quilts ready for quilting include:
Heart Twister
Paul's Wolf
Confetti
Pink Ribbon

If I can get a back pieced the Star Surround will be going in the pile as well. I'd love to have a quilting marathon on Saturday afternoon/evening/night since there is a race on and I know Paul will stay home to watch it.
I've also decided to do a giveaway for Breast Cancer awareness month. My mom was a survivor for 7 years until she lost the battle to brain cancer. She had a tremendous amount of pink ribbon fabric/stuff and I'm slowly getting rid of it. If you'd like to win this book leave a comment and I'll draw a winner sometime this month.

Here are a few pictures from the blizzard. It severely affected our family and the loss of animals is in the tens of thousands. My dad's wife lost all but a couple horses, so probably close to 20 horses. Mikaela is on our sidewalk after we dug that far. My car is behind her where the shovel on the right is. I walked completely over my car as there was a drift over it. To the left side of the picture is my MIL's car and my husbands pickup which was parked directly behind me.

The pickup had a drift level with the box all the way back across the street. We were lucky a front end loader came and dug out the street on Sunday. We were out most of Sunday morning and Paul was out all day getting us dug out. Once he got his 4-wheeler out, I think he was more playing in the snow than anything, but he helped out the neighbors get their driveway cleared too.

Hope everyone is having a productive October!

Shop Hopping, Prepping, Finishing

Last weekend I went to MN for a family wedding. I wanted to stop at a new quilt shop and with my husbands interest at stopping at several home improvement stores, I didn't get too much of a fight. We stopped at Heirloom Creations in Sioux Falls on Thursday night. I love to look around and wanted to pick out several rulers, but I just looked and ended up with the Aurifil spool on the left. It is a pretty blue/purple color I didn't have. On Friday we went to Rosemont MN for the grooms dinner and the Quilters Haven quilt shop was in the same building. My cousin Molly owns Salon 104 in the same building, so she knew the owner of the quilt shop. It just happened to open late on Friday night, so I took a peak around. My favorite part was the kids corner, where Mikaela played while I shopped. I picked up the pink Aurifil, the batik fat quarter, and the 2" Thangles. As I was waiting to pay I noticed the mini seam rippers. I fell in love and picked up one for me and one for a friend. Saturday we went to the wedding in White Bear Lake MN. I took Mathew while Paul and Mikaela slept before the wedding. He was very unhappy and didn't make shopping at the Bear Patch much fun at all. This shop was huge and new to me, so I was overwhelmed. There was a Bernina dealership next door which was really interesting and I loved all their samples. I ended up with the purple verigated quilting thread and the between needles. I want to try them for hand stitching. The lady checking me out treated me like I was moron and didn't know what Aurifil thread was or the weight. I was seriously disappointed in the customer service. All in all I really enjoyed going to the 4 different shops. I love seeing what others have to offer.

This week I am finishing up the Rubic Star and need to have more hand work to work on when I'm finished, so I made it my challenge to cut out some kits at lunch for my Ahhhh's. I have 13 cut out so far and I think they will all be fairly quick to piece since they are the beginner ones. I decided to start with the beginners and see if I can get them all pieced before going on to the more difficult. I'm thinking I may need to find more colors to work with as I'm getting a bit bored with the ones I have so far.

Last night the kids went to be surprisingly early and I had the opportunity to sew for almost 3 hours and go to bed early. I made this travel high chair. It's a sample for the store, but I wanted to show how it works and Mathew was asleep, so I used Mikaela's doll. I also started piecing another sample, so I am doing well with my goals for the month.

Be A Hexie Queen Blog Hop

Thanks for stopping by my corner of the world for the Be a Hexie Queen blog hop. It's been fun collecting my hexie projects to share with everyone. Welcome to those visiting for the first time. Thanks to Madam Samm and Debby for hosting this great blog hop. Thanks also to Connecting Threads for sponsoring this blog hop.

Here's a little about my crazy life, to introduce everyone to my love of hexie's. I started quilting in 1998, started blogging in 2004, met my husband Paul in 2005, met my best blogging friend the Cre8tive Quilter Jen in 2006, married in 2008, met the Prolific Online quilters at a blog retreat in 2009, and started hexieing in 2010. I work full time as an Assistant Registrar at a college, work on my masters degree (only 2 classes left!), and teach one night a week at The Sewing Center/Fabric City. We live just outside of Rapid City, SD and have a 2.5 year old Mikaela and an 8 month old Mathew.

My mom and best friend Delia was my sewing partner in crime. We taught, sewed, shop hopped, and quilted together. Her breast cancer came back in 2009 as brain cancer and my amazing friend Jen sent me a hexie travel bag, a Valentine's Charm pack cut into 2.5" squares, and 100 1" hexie papers. I had never hand sewn anything except binding, but I quickly learned to love basting and sewing hexie's. I worked on them off and on throughout all of 2010 while my mom was taking chemo treatments. I was attending all her appointments and I worked on them while we waited. I got pregnant during that year, so on top of her appointments, I had my own Dr. appointments to hexie at as well. I finished the Valentine Hexie Diamond on 1/15/11, just days before our daughter Mikaela was born. Mom got to see it before she passed away in February. This was the first quilt I won a ribbon for at the Central States Fair in 2011.


In December 2012 we welcomed a son Mathew. I knew I had to have a hospital quilt, so I used a Blush Jelly Roll I had won on a blog giveaway several years ago and created this Hexie quilt to take to the hospital with me. I didn't use a pattern, just a jelly roll and my 60* ruler.

In 2013 I knew I needed something to keep me busy while I pumped at work. As a nursing mom I spend 2 half hour breaks a day pumping, so I wanted some hand work. Jen was finishing up a very large English paper pieced hexie quilt and starting a new one. She formed a hexie group and encouraged us to baste 16 hexies a week. I have mine basted so I don't keep up with the basting goal, but I do work on my hexies every single week. The group has been amazing and keeping me motivated to work on my hexie projects. I'm so lucky that Regina (1I), Patti, Linda, and Jen from the Prolific Online quilters are part of the group as well as my local quilt friends Heather and Nicole H. The encouragement from the other gals is amazing.  I can't have just one project, I must have multiple WIP hexie projects.
Jen introduced me to Hillbilly Handiworks and her Ahhhh's. I quickly joined the block of the month for beginners. In the first month I created them all and they were super easy, so I started ordering from the Gotta Have them all club. I can't quite keep up with them, but I have been working on the beginner and intermediate ones. I have several prepped at a time and keep them in a travel bag so I can hexie when I get a chance. I do a lot of prep work during my lunch hour. My favorite place to hexie is the car wash. I have to sit in line and wait and the kids are almost always asleep!
This is one of my favorite ahhhh's.

I can hexie just about any place as my hubby can attest, even in the ice house. I won't let him go ice fishing by himself, so a couple Saturday's this winter grandma watched the kids and we went fishing. I got over 75 hexie's basted in just 6 hours.

I also was able to finish 2 ahhhh's during our fishing trip.

This is how far I have gotten with the ahhhh's. I'm excited to get more done, but I try to balance these with my other hand sewing projects.

I recently taught a class on how to make hexies. I created this snowflake as a sample.  These are 3/4" paper pieces, so it's a bit big for an ornament. Jen was my inspiration for this cute snowflake and it is made from just 2 charm squares.

I also taught a class on how to make this hexie table topper from Gudrun Erla's Table topper book. It's done with the quilt as you go method and I have another one in progress.


I love the 60* ruler, I think I have 6 or 7 of them in different sizes. One of my favorite projects are table toppers made from border fabrics. This farm friends one is the border off of my sons baby quilt. I also made a table runner to match for his bedroom. With the 60* ruler, it's the perfect hexie every time.


Another inspiration I took from Jen was to make needlebooks for my travel hand sewing bags. We both love the winding ways fabric so I made a couple from it.

I also made these hexie needlebooks from English paper piecing hexies for all my friends when we went to retreat this year.

I made travel bags for hexie projects as well.

I have several hexie English paper piecing projects that I am working on right now. This one is made from Buggy Barn scraps and I keep it in a fishing tackle box. These are 3/4" hexies. I typically baste them all, put them in the box and take what I need in my travel bag.

I am making a small table topper with 9 pink flowers and a cream sashing. I have all the flowers made, just have to put them together now. This project stays at work for the days I might forget my other projects.

I am also working on this sewing motif hexie project. It is going to be a tablerunner when it is finished. I make them in rows now and then put them together. It makes it easier to travel with them. Again these are in my fishing tackle box. I bought quite a few on clearance at Cabelas because they are the same size as the Art Bin one I bought, but much cheaper.

This project was brought on by my love of hexie English paper piecing and I made a complete 6 point star with EPP. I love how it turned out, but wish my diamonds were a bit more pronounced on the ends. I made this during the month of May, so my hand piecing is getting much quicker. I plan to make a lone/radiant star next, but am currently working on an Amish Rubic Star, so I want to finish it first.

Now for my Hexie Blog Hop Project - I started this as a way to use up scraps from my winding ways quilt. I saw something on the hexie group I belong to using these small 4 piece diamond hexies and thought it would be a quick way to use up some scraps. The diamonds are all made using 1/2" English papers. I hand sewed them as diamonds. These are the ones I completed during the World of Outlaws race. Paul can't believe some of the places I find to hexie.

Then I made them into rows. I had this background fabric from another project and it just seemed to work for this project.

Each row then became part of the diamond. I appliqued it to the black background and added borders. I quilted it with the walking foot, only on the background and borders. It does have steam a seam to hold down the hexie diamonds.

The final piece, a small wall hanging approximately 24"x 27"

I entered it at the Central States Fair this week and won a first place ribbon.

I couldn't do a blog hop without a giveaway, so I've decided to give away this hexie fabric with matching coordinates. There are 5 fat quarters total. I will also add a travel kit for English Paper Piecing hexies.

To enter the giveaway please leave a comment and tell me what your favorite thing to do in South Dakota would be if you have or would travel here.

Join the other blog hoppers today as they share their love of hexies as well!

Friday, August 23

Sew Peace to Peace

Quilt Crossing 

sarah did it!

Jane’s Quilting 

Life in the Scrapatch

Lixie Makes It 

Livinbluequilter  

Creative Notions 

Modern Handcraft 

Feathered Nest Studio 

Moneik Quilts - You're Here!