UFOs by hand ...

This past week, I haven't done a lot of sewing, and what I have done has been hand-stitching.

My Vintage-Inspired English Paper Piecing has been a fun long-term project.

Right now, I'm adding whiteish diamonds around the edges. Finishing this row requires another 50 or so diamonds.

There'll be another row of colorful diamonds soon, but I'm not sure if that's next, or if I'll need more of the white-and-cream.

Even my kitty-quilt-inspector has been enjoying this project!

I'm linking this post to Jo's weekly UFO Challenge at Jo's Country Junction, and looking forward to seeing what UnFinished Objects other quilters have been working on!

UFOs Again

This week's Wednesday UFO report:

My Vintage-Inspired English Paper Piecing has finally seen some progress!

That left and top border have gotten another row of diamonds since last week. (See the "before/during" pic below.)

  

The current cream-and-white border is almost complete. It needs one more neutral row (almost 100 diamonds), and then a colorful row. I'm not sure what's next after that.

I'm working on my (elaborate) quilt back for my weather quilt. I've got about 130 of these (8-inch) triangle blocks made, which is plenty.

Lots of progress on this, and lots of scraps being incorporated! 

(This process has, of course, resulted in a bunch more colorful stuff partially assembled, which will become part of another project.)

I'm linking my UFO report to this week's link party at Jo's Country Junction.

English Paper Piecing again

So, it's been fun getting back to my Vintage-Inspired English Paper Piecing.

I've got a bunch of basted diamonds ready to finish the current round of cream-and-white diamonds. I probably need one more round of cream-and-white, and then another multicolored row.

Here are some of the pieces I've recently basted.

More pictures soon - when I stitch some more diamonds to the quilt top!

UFO Report

I'm going to try to report weekly on my progress with UnFinished Objects (UFOs), and I'll be linking each post to the week's UFO Challenge at Jo's Country Junction.

Here's my update for this week:

The little crumb quilts are looking good ... Here's the front of one, and the back of another. More details in an earlier blog post.

 

Here's what my Vintage-Inspired EPP looks like right now:

It's hard to tell from this angle, but the two sides to the left of the picture each have two rows of diamonds; the two sides to the right of the picture each have only one row. 

So my first job is to add the 4 dozen diamonds to those edges on the right. 

Then, I'll be deciding what happens to the border from there ... solid fabric? colored diamonds? neutral diamonds? The quilt top is still small ... maybe 36" x 45"?, and I'd like it bigger, but not impossible to finish!

I basted a few neutral diamonds this week, to add to the ones I already had ...

 

And I decided that there should probably be another row of neutral diamonds, and there should definitely be another row of colorful diamonds in the border, so I cut some diamond papers ...

I also cut some fabric ...

And, I took inventory of the already-basted colorful ones I have ...

That's my progress for the week; I'm off to read Jo's blog post and link party to see who else is making progress on quilt-y UFOs this week!

English Paper Piecing - progress milestone

I've been making slow but steady progress on my English Paper Piecing ... I've finished the border of colored diamonds, and added a complete row of white-ish diamonds, which is more than a whole-row-around since the picture in my previous post about this quilt project. 

The vintage-inspired colorful fabrics still make me smile. I started with some "actual" vintage fabrics, added some reproduction-vintage fabrics, and threw in some regular fabrics that just seem to fit the style! I love it!

I'm thinking I'll add at least two more rows of white-ish diamonds. (The border is a variety of whites & creams, including some solids, some woven-in white-on-white stripes, and some woven-in white-on-white florals.)

After that, since the quilt top will still be so small (right now, it measures 35" x 45"), I'll probably lay the whole thing on a cream-colored background, add something colorful for a border (more diamonds? squares?), and then add batting and backing, and quilt it. That whole procedure should add at least 10 inches to each side, making this a decent lap-sized quilt.

Every time I put anything quilty on the floor, the cat shows up to inspect.

Silly cat. 

I'm linking this post to this week's Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts, and looking forward to seeing what sorts of English Paper Piecing other quilters have been working on.

In other quilting news, I'm ALWAYS in the middle of multiple quilty projects. 

Lately, I have:

- Quilted 2 quilt tops my great-great-grandmother made!

- Finished a Quilt-As-You-Go quilt!

- Made a shirts-and-sheets quilt top - with lots of bright orange! [Update: Sneak peek of that quilt here.]

- Sewn some bits and pieces on my Double Wedding Ring quilt top.

- Almost finished enough leaders-and-enders for a big quilt top!

- Started and finished baby quilts for my two newest nieces! [Update: Blogged about them here.]

- Finished a couple more quilts to list on eBay! [Update: See posts here and here.]

- I've also been meaning to share pictures of some quilts I worked on last year but never blogged about! [Update: One finally-blogged finish post here.]

I'm hoping to blog about all of those things soon (the links above are links for blog posts where I started or mentioned those items. Real posts coming soon!)

Not long ago, my son-who's-having-a-birthday-soon suggested that when I finish the quilts I've got started, maybe I can make another quilt for him. (Good thinkin'. After all, I've made each of my girls a jeans quilt AND a patchwork quilt; I've made each of my boys a jeans quilt. Time to make a couple of boy quilts. So. I have a plan for a guy-quilt for my son. Not sure if it'll happen before birthday time, but we'll see.) [Update: I DID make an NFL Quilt, complete with quilted-in FOOTBALLS! Blog post here.]

English Paper Piecing - Vintage-Inspired Diamonds

It's been a while since I've blogged about this one. And it's been in progress a while, too. (I first mentioned this quilt on my blog in this post from 2011.)

 

This is a hand-sewn quilt project. Even though most of my projects involve the speed of the sewing machine, I love the portable-ness of a hand-sewn project!

 

 

The last time I blogged about this one was this post last July. Since then, I've added at least a few diamonds around the edges, and basted quite a few more!

 

 

When Monday comes, I'll be linking this post to this week's Monday Morning Star Count at LifeUnderQuilts.



 

 

Monday's Report on English Paper Piecing

On my Very Tiny English Paper Piecing ...

I'm pleased to have a very tiny bit of progress to report!

Here's how it looks:

 

 

This week's picture is very similar to last week's picture (below), only the bottom row is now finished, and there are 8 more hexagons along the left side, and 7 more on the right.

 

I'm still working out the details as to how to prep this for going into a frame ... but I'm getting closer.

Linking this post to this week's Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts ...

Monday Morning Star Count (Wednesday Edition!)

Even though most of my sewing happens at the sewing machine, I love the chance to sew from a comfy spot on the couch or rocking chair. So I keep a handsewing project or two in the works ...

 

 

Here's my very tiny English Paper Piecing project. It's going to be a wall-hanging ... hopefully soon. I mentioned a tiny bit of progress in a November post, but that was not much progress since the September milestone post ...

 

Since the pieces for this are so small, I keep a very tiny sewing kit so that it's a portable project. This way, I can toss in my purse or tote bag, or keep it in the car for when I need some sewing to fill a bit of "waiting" time ... Small. Simple. Portable.

 

The assembled hexagons don't fit in the tin any more, but the tin has plenty of room for fabric circles, hexagon papers, thimble, needles, thread, and tiny scissors.

 

 

Sometimes, just a little extra motivation makes the difference in keeping consistent progress happening ... so I'm excited that Jessica's Life Under Quilts blog is hosting a Monday Morning Star Counts weekly link-up.

 

Even though it's no longer Monday Morning, I'm linking this post to this week's Monday Morning Star Count, and looking forward to seeing what some other quilters are working on this week.

 

This is going to be framed in an 8½" x 11" frame, so I just have some white background pieces to finish. Haven't counted the number of hexagons still needed, so let's just say, I need about another inch of height, and another inch of width, all in white ...

Very Tiny English Paper Piecing (that will someday be a wall-hanging)

So, ever since summertime (when I had the motivation of Monday Morning Star Counts), I haven't worked on my Very Tiny English Paper Piecing. Until a couple of weeks ago. I guess I got re-inspired. For one thing, I really want to make this into a framed wall-hanging. For another thing, I noticed that at least one blogger has kept up the Monday Morning Star Counts tradition that Jessica started. (And why not, even without the central spot to link posts like this? Thanks for the inspiration, Pamela!) And also - it's such a satisfying thing to make some progress while sitting and relaxing.

I got out the tiny EPP, and worked on it (with my Christmas Hexagon Quilt on my lap!

As it turns out, the kitty liked the Christmas Quilt idea, too, so she sat on part of the quilt near my feet.

I got busy and made a bunch of tiny hexagons, and put a whole row of white hexagons along one side of the soon-to-be wall-hanging. (All those white ones on the right-hand-side of the picture above are new.)

These are very tiny, as you may recall. Last time I posted about this one was this blog post. I think the first time I blogged about this particular tiny hexagon project was here, although I've posted about other tiny hexagon projects in the past (such as here and here).

 Anyhoo, I've got a little progress happening here and there, and that's been nice.

Since I like the chance to share and see quilty progress on quilty blogs, I'm linking this post to this week's Work In Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Mini English Paper Piecing milestone

I've finally reached a milestone in my very tiny English Paper Piecing!

I'm still loving the scrappiness, the colorfulness, and the tinyness!

I still need to add a few dozen white hexagons to fill in around the edges. All the black background area will be white. Right now, the widest point (couldn't resist the smiley face in the corner!) is 9 inches. Eventually, the whole thing will fit in a document-sized frame that's 8-and-a-half by 11 inches.

This has been a fun take-along project, since it's so tiny ... 

I'm linking up (days late!) with Jessica's last-of-the-summer Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts. (Better late than never!) But actually, I DID take this picture on Monday, since I got a lot of sewing done over the long Labor Day weekend. And also, the Monday link parties have been a great motivation to get even a little progress happening. Thanks again, Jessica!

Monday Report on English Paper Piecing

This past week, I got a little EPP done while I was listening to some unrelated training videos on the computer. Just a bit of progress, but it's twice as much as last week!

A couple of people have asked exactly what size my hexagons are. I printed and cut out card stock templates that are 5/16" (about 8mm) - so, pretty small.

Since I'm making these into a framed wall hanging, and since my templates are just plain, white card stock, I'm probably going to just leave the templates in when I frame this. Good thing, too, since this is what the flowers look like from the back. 

In the past, when I've made individual hexagon flowers this small to embellish projects, taking the templates out required tweezers!

I'm linking this post to this week's Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts.

Here's how progress is looking:

6 hexagon+background sets

9 colored hexagons

2 white hexagons

A Little Bit of Little EPP

So ... I've been trying the Blogger app on my phone, and it keeps doing weird things. This post was published, but then disappeared, so I'm updating/redoing ... 

This past week, I did just a little bit of English Paper Piecing. Just a little, but it's more progress than I had last week. Just enough to link up with this week's Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts ...

Here are the pieces I've got partially assembled for my little wallhanging.

I've had several other sewing projects in the works, and I'm hoping to blog about some of them later this week, so stay tuned!

English Paper Piecing, Tiny Style

This past week, I didn't make any new tiny flowers. (Nor did I sew any vintage diamonds!) But I did stitch some tiny flowers into usable "groups" of two flowers plus two white hexagons. 

I'm still not sure what order the flowers will go in, or exactly how many more I'll make, so putting the flowers into groups is a step in the right direction, while still giving me the flexibility to rearrange.

When I was sitting with these flowers in my lap, I asked one of the kids for my tape measure. Apparently, Dad's tape measures were easier to find than Mom's, since this is the tape measure I promptly got. :-) So - this layout is about 8 inches wide already! With a few white hexagons around the sides, and another row or two of hexagon flowers, I should have an 8" x 10" frame full of tiny hexagons soon! 

I'll be linking this post to this week's Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts, which is one of the blogs that continually inspires my English Paper Piecing. 

I tried writing this post with the Blogger app on my phone ... but it wouldn't publish. And then it disappeared. Now, as I type this (on the computer), it's showing up on my phone's blogger app. So ... if a similar post (or three) turns up later on, that's why.

This past week's English Paper Piecing

I love the speed and ease of quilt-piecing on the sewing machine. But I love the portability of hand-sewing, and I love the chance to keep my hands busy making something pretty.

This past week, I snapped a few pictures with my phone while I was sitting and stitching in random spots ...

I spent a little time working on my tiny English-Paper-Pieced flowers when I was outside watching the kids swimming at Grandma's ...

As of Wednesday afternoon, this is how many tiny flowers I had. (For the eventual layout, imagine all the black background space filled with white ...)

I also made a couple flowers when I took one of the kids to a scout meeting ...

And I got out the diamond EPP to pass the time in a waiting room ...

It's nice to have some supplies in a compact format, for convenient handstitching.

The single row of diamonds around the border is coming along great!

Always plenty to do ...

Vintage-Inspired Diamonds ...

Here's where the Diamonds EPP is looking ... 38 new colorful diamonds around the edge, new since last week.

And the Very Tiny EPP flower count is up to 20 - up from 16 three weeks ago.

I'm linking this post to this week's Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts. And I'll be checking the links there for pictures of some other handsewing projects that quilters have been working on during the past week.