Remember those half-square-triangles from my last post? I stayed up that night playing with different arrangements for the potholders. I had originally intended to make two potholders like the one at top left, just simple HSTs. Then I realized I had enough to make four potholders. And then I started playing with the layouts on my living room floor. I wound up making four different layouts using the HSTs I made:
The one with the geese is definitely my favorite, mainly because of the quilting. I just did straight lines ¼" away from the diagonal lines, and it turned out really cool, creating different sizes of squares and rectangles. It felt awesome with such tight quilting, too.
I used two layers of Insul-Brite and a 2½" binding. It was really tight hand-sewing that binding down! My index finger was raw the next day. Luckily, while I was at my parents' house in Arlington over the weekend to give my dad the potholders (which he loved), my mom took me to the Lone Star House of Quilts. The shop had only a few bolts of modern fabric, but I got some fun notions:
I finally got some fork pins! I've been wanting these for a while. I've also been dying to try some hexagons, and ever since I learned to hand-sew binding I've really enjoyed handiwork. So I got some 1" hexagon templates. I've been reading about Melanie's adventures in hand-piecing hexagons on her blog, Texas Freckles. Melanie is leading a hexagon crusade she calls a "hexagon charm quilt piece-along." She's working on a quilt made up of more than 1,000 1" hexagons. That's quite an undertaking. I just started playing with my hex templates and some scraps yesterday, just to practice before I start any "real" projects. And to go with my newfound love of handiwork, I got something called a Nimble Thimble. That was purely an impulse buy brought on by my still-raw finger. So far it's working well, though. It fits snugly and has a little metal reinforcement on the fingertip. I'm still trying to get used to having it on my finger, but it works a lot better than putting a band-aid on as a protective layer :)
I was really surprised that I actually enjoy handiwork. I used to do every little thing by machine, including sew the binding down. Now I really like sewing the binding by hand, mainly because it has such and awesome look to it — people who don't sew might thing it's held down by magic. And the hexagons are pretty fun so far. The thing I like about sewing by hand is that you can be very deliberate with each stitch and make sure it gets done right. I've mentioned before that I'm planning a double-wedding ring quilt as a gift for my parents' 40th wedding anniversary (which is just more than two years away). I'm still quite intimidated by curved piecing, and I'm strongly considering just piecing it all by hand. Something like that becomes an heirloom, so it seems worthwhile. Have any of you tried hand piecing? Or do you have some expert tips at sewing curves on your machine?
Can you believe it's June already? Feels like just yesterday it was April!
Potholder Pass Round 3 is complete. I made a pair of potholders I was really happy with...
... and received a pair I am even happier with!
These came to me from Mary of Pin Sew Press, and they are just fabulous. (Thanks again, Mary!) It made my day to pull these beauties out of the mailbox! It was a really good mail day today, because I also got a little package from my best friend in the world, Jimmie. (I can say best friend in the world because she lives in Taiwan!) I only get to see her once or twice a year, and she sent me a cute letter on some Asian stationary and some mix CDs :)
As May drew to a close, so did the Spring to Finish Challenge. I racked up eight finishes in six weeks — two of which were completed quilts! I had a rough month, so I had to cut myself some slack and two things from my list are yet unfinished. They'll get there eventually... :)
What's brightening your day today? How many projects did you complete last month?
I finished these potholders yesterday for Malka's 2010 Great Potholder Swap. I pieced both sides...
...and then I couldn't decide what should be the front and what should be the back! I ended up making this the back:
I used every single scrap I had so far from Julie's Hexagon Quilt-Along and followed Elizabeth's tutorial on Sew, Mama, Sew. I ripped out seams in my jelly roll strips and cut them in half lengthwise, to end with ¾" finished strips.
Since I don't yet have a Kona color card, it was immensely helpful that coordinating solids were already picked out for me on the Robert Kaufman website. I bought a yard each of Pomegranate, Peridot, Lagoon and Tangerine for a steal from Handcock's of Paducah, leaving me plenty left over for the Hexagon Quilt-Along.
To make the "back" of the potholders, I had to make a spiderweb block ½" bigger than on the front, then cut it into quarters and sew it back together. I traced out shapes on paper and cut and taped them together to double-check my measurements so I wouldn't waste the fabric — but boy did I end up recycling a lot of paper!
With four days left before the half-way check in on Spring to Finish, I'm feeling pretty good about it!
What are you working on this week?
