Playing with Lenni

Lately the awesome and beautiful and very much LOVED seniors in my life have been keeping me busy. Today, I thought I'd get some quilting practice while I can. Here are a few strips of scraps I used to doodle on. I seem to be drawn toward the "organic" style of quilting and design. I'm a "country girl" maybe that's why?!?!

 

My Momma had to have three stints put in her heart on Friday. She was awesome and got to go home on Saturday.

 Anyone who can bare ten kids in the era long before there were epidurals and all the other instant gratification things of today is practically a Saint in my book. The hospital staff loved her and one teased about adopting her as his own... not sure if for Mother or Grandmother, but he called her an old lady (in a joking way) to the Doctor, so I assume Grandmother. All in all she never complained a bit and is home healing!

Fabric Collage Book for Momma

I just realized that the last post I touched upon my aging parents. I want to share this Fabric Collage book that I made for my Mother.

The Cover

Her as a baby on the left & 4 generations of my fore-mothers on the right.

Mom in her school years.

The old Singer 

This project was so much fun to make. I used mostly antique laces, buttons, ephemera and just memory provoking ideas to bring nostalgia to the cloth pages. Some pages were from an old handmade quilt that someone in the family had.

There are more pages, but these were all the pictures that I had on the computer.

The photos are copies that I ran through my inkjet printer onto fabric except for the last one which was an iron on and I found that I like the inkjet transfer much better.

Maybe there will be a tutorial in the future, but for now I have more projects than I can keep up with!

Thanks for viewing! 

Aging Parents

I've managed to get a few more of the "Honey Hexies" sewn on to the project I have under-way. The past two weeks, I have been giving attention to my 83 year old Mother who was hospitalized from having chest pains. Since her release, we have gone to multiple appointments, including a stress test that was probably just as stressful for me as it was on her. We will be seeing a Cardiologists on Monday and will go from there. Waiting rooms sometimes can make excellent hand sewing projects productive. Aside from my own Mother, I have been getting organized for more involvement in fundraising for the Alzheimer's Association on behalf of my Mother inlaw. My husband and I are caregivers of his Mother, who lives in our home. June is Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness Month so please go to alz.org and make a donation or get educated about this wonderful organization.

Honey Hexies Tutorial

I am so glad to be getting back into the benefits of blogging. I am hoping to get a lot of fun and inspiring information on here within the coming months. I have such a variety of things I want to share and I hope I will be connecting with some of you with similar interests. I can't consider myself in no way a computer "tech" and if I could higher someone to fill in all the things that come through this head to build my blog, I could quickly fill a blog library. Otherwise, it's just little 'ol me trying to divide my time between God, family, business, farm-life & blogs, so please bare with me! So here is the beginning of my designing stage for this honey of a project! It will be a small quilt and I am making it for a friend. I read about these easy-to-do hexagon shapes and am sorry that I cannot remember who to credit them to. Others that I've seen are paper pieced and seemed to be too time consuming, so I tried these and very much like them!

It begins with the bare basic tools; fabric, a pair of scissors, something to mark with, (I used a pencil that was handy); and a circle template. (I used an ever-so versatile-use canning lid). The circle can be from any template and any size you want. The fabric can be any color you wish and this is an awesome design to use up small pieces in your fabric stash, just because, or when you need a quick gift project and don't have a lot of time.

Cut out as many circles as you want. My project is still in the making and I am placing my little "Honey Hexies" in a random pattern for now. When I get them all sewn permanently, I will include those photos. Next you fold one circle in half WST (wrong side together) and iron. Then you will open it up, turn about a 1/4 of a turn and iron again, which will give you a little X in the center.

Next, you will fold up an edge that has the wider area between the creases of your circle so that the edge meets the center X. Then iron.

You will need to work in the same direction all the way around. It doesn't matter which... right or left. I went 'clockwise' or to my left. Pick up the edge that meets the outer-most point of your creased circle and fold it up and toward the center X. Make sure that it meets the X, then iron.

The following steps are the same. Pick up the bottom (in my case, left) creased edge and bring

it up to meet the center X and then iron. Continuing around until there is just one triangle section left.

Notice that I pinned the last two sections. You can pin all the way around if you'd like, but I didn't feel it necessary.

All you have to do now, is fold up the last section, iron and tuck it under the first section. Then I turned mine over and ironed the top side to set it. There are many different designs you can use these little hexies with. I may link to some when I have time, but for now try this technique and see if you enjoy them as much as me!

My little Honey Hexies. This is one of those projects that you can cut circles for a while or iron one section on a bunch and then the next section, or you can work one at a time if that's what you like. I found it to be too repetitious doing one at a time, so I mixed it up and worked on different tasks and it seemed to keep it moving along faster. I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial. I've had fun with mine and can't wait to share the finished project!