Color Wheel Quilt

All finished! The binding went on yesterday and I washed it this morning.

This quilt was my first hand quilted project. I started it in February, and actually constructed it quickly, but would set it aside and only work on the hand quilting occasionally. 

My daughter took this and the first photo. I may have to use this one for my blog header. 

In case you are wondering, here are the facts. The fabrics came from my stash. It's quilted with Gütermann and YLI white cotton hand quilting thread. I used size 9 between quilting needles. I didn't prewash any of these fabrics, but I used a Shout Color Catcher in the wash. (Nothing bled.) I can't remember what kind of batting I used, but I think it's either Warm n' Natural or Hobbs Heirloom 80/20. I'm fairly certain I used Moda Bella solid white and I don't think it washed up as softly as Kona. I marked my stitching lines lightly with a very sharp No. 2 pencil and a long ruler. The lines that didn't come out during quilting came out in the wash.

I'm a total newbie at hand quilting, but I'm hooked. My sewing machine may be seeing a little less of me. I read your comments about hand quilting videos, so when I start hand quilting the Paintbox quilt, I'll shoot a little video. For beginners by a beginner. 

Have a lovely Monday!

Happy Dance!

I just did a little happy dance around the living room,

complete with shouts of "woo hoo!".

I decided I wanted to finish something today, so I put in the first season of The Big Bang Theory (which has unequivocally replaced Gilligan's Island as my all time favorite televison comedy) and made myself comfy on the sofa. It only took 17 commercial-free episodes to finish the quilting. Now it just needs a binding, but wow, my fingers are sore.

Oh, and I'm a new Big Bang fan. A friend who insisted we needed to see the show loaned us the first and second seasons on DVD a couple of weeks ago. I haven't seen the third season, so no spoliers please. I pre-ordered it on Amazon, but there's no release date listed. It hope it's released soon so we can catch up before the fourth season starts.

Another busy week.

It's been a busy another busy week. I only have a few minutes to post, but I thought I'd check in.

The garage slab was poured on Wednesday. This was before. The crew hit bedrock, so Sean had to rent a jackhammer and it took an extra day to jackhammer the ditches for the beams. At least we know the slab won't be moving. The family room and master suite will be above the garage. It's the size of a four car garage since it will also house the airplane Sean is building. (Yes, I park my car next to a pair of airplane wings in my garage.)

  

Dirt work for the slab addition that will be my sewing room, powder room, and Shea's bathroom. I think this was on June 5th.

And here's that same spot yesterday. What a difference a few days makes! That room with the ladder is my sewing room. We need to get the tree trimmer to come trim up that pecan tree soon.

I've been sewing during swim team every day.

It's nice to have hand work projects that are so portable.

 

It's also fun to have little girls stop to see what I'm working on. 

Perle Cotton and Hexagons

Thank you for all of the kind comments on my first mini quilt! I had such fun with that hand quilting. I foresee many more Perle cotton quilted quilts in my future.

Speaking of Perle cotton, I made a score on Ebay. This is 36 balls of size 8 DMC Perle Cotton...

that I got for $30 with shipping! Woo hoo! That's like 80-something cents each! They are mostly older, but are unused and I read online that they age well. They had been stored in plastic bins. Between these and the inexpensive perle cottons I ordered from Threadart, (thank you for the tip, Sarah!), I'll hopefully have all the colors in my Paintbox quilt covered. That's the plan at least.

We spent last evening at my mother's house for some fun and food with her and my brothers and their families. As I was sewing hexagons together, my adorable niece enjoyed going through them picking out her favorite fabrics.

I think she's got pretty good taste!

I've decided that storing the hexagons by color was causing me to over think my random layout. (Plus, they outgrew the storage box.) I dumped them all out and mixed them up. Now, I'm trying just to reach in and grab the next one and go with whatever I pull out. The only editing I'm doing is attempting to avoid attaching two of very similar color or print adjacent to one another. I'm probably still over thinking it, but at least I'm not spending a full minute or more on deciding which fabric to attach next. The best scenario for me is to ask an uninterested party to select the next hexagon and avoid the paralysis of analysis altogether.

I'm sorry I've fallen a bit behind on the weekly hexagon posts. I have a couple of piecing videos I'd like to record and hopefully I'll get those done this week. If you need a quick hexagon fix, check out everyone's progress in the flickr group. I love seeing all the beautiful quilts evolve! Keep the photos coming!

I 'll likely be scarce this week; I have a mountain of new freelance work I need to get done between swim team practices and entertaining my out-for-the-summer daughter.  Enjoy your week!