Courtship

This is one page from my Fabric Collage book that I had made in honor of my Mother a few years ago. I thought it appropriate to share, given Valentine's Day is soon. Funny thing; as Mom and I sifted through old photos and came across the tin type photo that you can see tucked inside the envelope, she couldn't recall who he was. Hmmm? So he became the 'suitor'' in the collage just for the fun of it! The fabric transfer of the young lady in the fore-round is my Mother around the age of sixteen.

It feels good to finally get back into the studio and just practice and work on some older projects. I could use a bit of organization in here as well as some new fabric to begin the many to choose from ideas swimming around in my head. It seems the weeks are already flying by and before long I will be wanting to be outside in the garden! Oh, the thought of warm sunshine on my face and the smell of well conditioned garden soil is a wonderful thought. Thankful to be a semi-patient person, but I get all dreamy-like when it comes to gardening.

Here is a small clip of some practicing of background fill that I wanted to play with on a table runner that I started last fall. This weeks plan was to make up a sample book of some fillers and design work, so now that I got that UFO finished, I can start on the samples.

Have a wonderful Wednesday

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!