A Prairie Home Quilts

I’ve finished the top finally. It’s all hand pieced. Tonight I hope to make the binding strips and piece the back. . . I’m being frugal and using up some strips that came off the backing of another Christmas quilt hence needing to piece the backing even though this topper is only about 20″ across at its widest point.

Next up will be basting it so that I can hand quilt it.

This is the block I’m using in a quick project I started to have a gift for my mom for her birthday.  It’s going to be a small wall hanging — about 26″ x 26″.  Although, if it were really a “quick project,” I’d have it done already, right?  Maybe it’s just that I’m not quick. . .  I’m using the Free Inklingo Collection to make LeMoyne Star blocks and half LeMoyne Stars to make the bud blocks.  I’ve pieced the inset seams by hand and pieced the rest by machine.  Next time, though, I’m doing the whole thing by hand because I was disappointed that some of my points will be clipped off.  I’m able to be more accurate when I hand piece.

I added a strip of fabric to two sides of the half-star bud block to make it the same size as the full LeMoyne Star block.  I was too lazy to do the “pot” part the correct way  (I found this block in an antique quilt, btw) so I just did a half square triangle block and trimmed it to the correct size.  The finished size of the LeMoyne Star block in the Free Inklingo Collection is 4 1/2″.

I used photo editing software to play around with a cropped image of the block to decide on my setting.  This one just wouldn’t do.

Next up. . .  This one’s better but it’s still not “there” yet.

And finally, yes!  That’s it!  I like this setting the best.  Although we’ll see what happens when I add the border fabrics.

Ludo thinks if he hides this block, he can claim the wall hanging for himself.

He doesn’t know that Grandma has already seen the block and she’s not parting with the wall hanging.

I’ve had this done for a while but haven’t updated the blog.  The hand piecing went quickly and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I think that means I’m up for hand piecing a whole quilt top of hexagons.

I have this all basted and ready for hand quilting, and I have about 300 sets of fabric hexagons together for the quilt top.  I need to start basting them to the hexagon paper pieces.  I’m also experimenting with another (new-to-me) technique that would eliminate the basting-to-paper-pieces step and lets you hand piece the hexagons together without using a whip stitch.  If I’d known about it before I started cutting up my fabrics into squares for hexagons, I probably would have used it instead although I don’t mind using a whip stitch to sew the hexagons together.  It goes quickly for me.  I’ll post about my experiment with Inklingo in a few days — after I have a sample finished up so I can post a picture of it.  Oh, and it’s not that I don’t have other hexagon quilt ideas in my head that I could use this new technique on, you know?  LOL

Guess who thinks this project is his?  Yes, Mischievous Ludo.  He claimed it long before I had it finished.  I’m sure when it’s completely quilted and on the table, it will be a daily game to keep him off of it.

For me, the urge to do some handwork always seems to be there bubbling under the surface. I even enjoy hand quilting but as I explained in a previous post I haven’t had the opportunity to do a lot of it while I was living with my mom.  At one time I thought I’d do some hand piecing to satisfy the urge.  I started basting the hexagons for this topper some time ago.  When I was sitting around while the computerized quilting system was doing its thing, I was usually either reading or basting hexagons–more reading then basting though or I’d have had more of this done. *smile*  When I started packing up my quilting room to get ready for my move to Oklahoma, I left out 4 projects that I could work on by hand in case it was a while before I could get my sewing machine back out. So now, here I am about 3 months later finally doing some more handwork.

I love the portability of my project.  And I’ve become totally obsessed with hexagons. So much so that I’ve totally changed my plan for the GFG quilt top that I am collecting fabrics for.  *smile*  Here’s the little bag that I’m using to hold all my stuff for the table topper.

This holds my needles, scissors, basting thread, hand quilting thread that I’m using to sew the hexagons together, and the sandwich baggies that are holding my basted hexagons (and some extra unbasted ones, too).

I was storing the fabric for my Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt top in a shoe box but then I bought this storage box at Walmart.

It’s actually a tackle box.

I haven’t started basting any of the fabric to hexagon templates for this project yet. Which is probably a good thing because I changed my mind on how I’m going to piece the top. I decided against the look of what we think of as the traditional Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt.

Here’s my progress on the table topper up to the point that I last took a picture–I think it was last weekend. I actually have five complete flowers done and a bit of the last two.

It’s gone faster than I thought it would. Soon I’ll be able to start hand quilting it!