Eleven-eleven-eleven-eleven

So, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year 2011, I finished sewing the eleventh ring of hexies to my charm quilt. Cool, huh?

As well as the technicolour photo above, I took one in black and white to check out how the values were working out:



I think it's working out ;-)

Checkin in with the Challenges

Another ring added to my Hexalong project:




That's 331 hexagons stitched together. Phew.

And, yes, I've been continuing with the ICAD Challenge:



As you can see, I haven't really stuck to much of a theme with these ones and I did (shock horror!) even miss one day, though still on track to complete 25 for September :-)

Now all I need to do is start on something for the Christmas Through the Year Challenge for September. I am feeling a bit uninspired :-(

Good Things, Not Such Good Things and Better Things

I forgot to post my Good Things for last week:



Pema Chodron's quote of the week reminded me of the reasons why I started keeping the good things journal:

CHERISH ORDINARY MOMENTS

In our most ordinary days we have moments of happiness, moments of comfort and enjoyment, moments of seeing something that pleased us, something that touched us, moments of contacting the tenderness of our hearts. We can take joy in that. I find that it’s essential during the day to actually note when I feel happiness or when something positive happens, and to begin to cherish those moments as precious. Gradually we can begin to cherish the preciousness of our whole life just as it is, with its ups and downs, its failures and successes, its roughness and smoothness.

I needed reminding of the good things when I managed to do this:



Yep, I sewed my star together back to front. Grrrrrrrr. And after doing the neatest whip stitches I had ever managed too :-(. I was so ready to just throw it out and stamp my feet, but in the end I decided to unpick the stitches and sew it together the right way round and here's how it turned out:



Not so bad, but as you can see, the points don't quite meet in the middle, meaning there's an itty bitty hole there. Ho-hum.

The day after this sewing disaster, my copy of Jinny Beyer's Quiltmaking by Hand book was delivered. Wow, what an amazingly beautiful and thorough book!



I was interested that Jinny more or less totally dismisses English Paper Piecing as a cumbersome waste of time when hand piecing cottons. That, coupled with seeing Gayle's amazing point-to-point sewn hexagons, has made me think about reconsidering paper piecing. I will definitely continue with the hexagon charm quilt (I have over 300 hexies already basted lol!) but am wondering whether to abandom EPP diamonds in favour of learning point-to-point sewing techniques. Oooh, I dunno.

In non-sewing news, I have continued with the ICAD Challenge. This week I have mostly been playing with Sharpies. I just love the saturated colours. Not so much the smell though!

First Hexagon Star

first hexagon star, a photo by Viv J M on Flickr.

It's a star. Inside a hexagon. Nuff said :-)

Dotty over the Hexalong

If you don't already know, there's a Hexalong going on over at Lily's Quilts. Why don't you join in the fun?!

I am planning to continue with my hexagon charm quilt. Progress as of today here:



But I have also been falling in love with BIG hexies made up of smaller parts, in particular 60 degree diamond star hexies. I have put together a bit of an inspiration gallery over on Flickr:

Hexalong Inspirations, a gallery on Flickr.

I think (don't hold me to this!) I want to do something like summerfete's Summer of Love quilt, which you can see on her blog here. And because I'm feeling a bit dotty, I thought I would make all the stars with dotty and spotty fabrics. I'm not sure how I managed to inadvertently collect so many spotty fabrics but I pulled together all these from my stash:



Cos of using the incompetech graph paper (thanks for the tip Lilys Quilts) if I decide the dotty stars are just toooooo much I can make some big plain coloured hexies to go in between them. I am thinking maybe light grey for those, I am just too grubby for white lol.

Oooh, the excitement!!

And because my ICADs reflect what I am reading about, or doing, or thinking about, you won't be surprised to see my card for today:

Seven Orphans to the Burning Man

This week I am sending seven orphans off to the Burning Man! Before you call the police, read Christina's post over on a few scraps. She and her husband are planning to take a treadle sewing machine to the extraordinary sounding Burning Man Festival for what she describes as "a fun experiment in collaborative art". I like the idea of my humble British patchwork being sewn into something new and wonderful in the Nevada desert, so volunteered to make and send a few blocks. The blocks needed to be 12 inches, so I added random scraps and borders to a few orphans left over from various quilting projects. They are very random - I almost literally picked up bits and pieces of fabrics lying around my sewing area and added them :-). Hopefully they will fit the bill!



In other quilty news, I have decided to sign up to Lily Quilts' Hexalong. I have already re-started on my hexagon scrap quilt from last summer so will carry on with this, but having seen the beautiful hexagon sampler quilt posted here, I *may* have to start a new project to make something along these lines too. This will be my main quilting project for the upcoming months, cos I am still having trouble using my sewing machine much without exacerbating my back pain. Grrrrrrr. But an excuse to hand sew isn't such a bad thing ;-)

Oh, and not forgetting this week's Good Things:



If you'd have asked me, I'd have said it hadn't been a very good week, but keeping this journal just goes to show me that good things are happening all the time, if only you take the time to notice them!