Confetti Table Runner

I have finally finished this little hexagon quilt.

I have dubbed it the Confetti Table Runner.

This thing took almost three years to complete.

It't not difficult but it is very time consuming.

Plus this was my travel quilt and it was not worked on frequently.

I have worked on this in several states, campgrounds, waiting rooms, and break rooms.

Also a few porches and vehicles too!

I loved this material when I found it.

I happened to be reading Huckleberry Finn at the time.

I'm not a fan of the green but I couldn't pass up this fun fabric!

Every bit of this small quilt is made from scraps or thrifted material, including the batting.

This piece is also completely hand sewn except for the binding.

All those little hexagons (AKA hexies) were hand pieced. :)

There are 420, 3/4" hexagons in this!

The 3/4" measurement means the length of one of the sides.

These are fairly small hexies.

There are some crazy quilters out there that use smaller ones!

One of the times I was working on this at school the art teacher looked at it.

She was impressed with the color placements.

This made me chuckle because my only rule for putting this together was to be sure

that the same fabrics weren't touching each other. This proved a little challenging toward

the end when there were fewer hexies to choose from.

I quilted straight lines through the hexies.

I went against my usual pre-marking and eyeballed these lines.

That's a first for me!

Another first for me was this feathering in the border.

I drew the stem with a french curve and then drew the rest free hand.

I really like the way the border turned out.

I was really torn about what to use for the binding.

So I posted to one of the quilting facebook groups for advice.

In the end I chose red per most of the recommendations in the group.

It was way out of my comfort zone but I really like it!

The funny part is I didn't realize I had any of the blue border fabric left.

If I had I would have used that but I'm glad I didn't. The red really makes the colors pop!

Quilt stats:

#29

26" x 36"

hand pieced

hand quilted

3/4" hexies

...and yes, I've started another hexie quilt. :)

Storm Damage

Over the weekend we had quite the storm blow through.

It took out several trees and large limbs.

Dwayne was making a video as the storm rolled it.

You can see it on Facebook.

The wind sure wreaked havoc on the corn.

We think the corn behind the house will recover.

Only time will tell with some of the other fields around us.

They were hit pretty hard.

This is Elmer's boar pen behind our house.

A few large limbs came down.

One of the apple trees blew over in the duck run.

Thankfully it missed the coop and the fence.

It missed the ducks too.

We may try to salvage this tree by pulling it up and staking it.

Hopefully it can recover.

A nest blew out of the apple tree too.

Funny how it's intact.

Some birds build strong nests!

Our house was OK except for a small bit of siding that loosened on the basement.

We did have an old dog house blow across the yard.

We normally store firewood in it but it was empty...

The woods behind our house where there are some cattle also suffered some downed trees.

Of course one of them was over the lane to the back part of the property.

The other end of the farm had some damage as well.

This broke our hearts.

These trees have been there over sixty years!

Now there's only the middle tree left.

This large limb just missed the pole shed.

There were several trees damaged in the rows of pine trees.

All of the broken trees looked like the top 1/3 to 1/2 snapped off.

Two trees along one of the ditches snapped also.

We're thankful everyone's homes were OK and we didn't lose electricity.

However, it will take a while to clean up.

Grace

Meet Grace!

Long story short, I got a new-to-me hand quilting frame.

Yes, I already had two.

I'm so grateful for those and the stories behind them.

It's called a Grace Frame.

The Grace Company has been making frames for over 30 years.

I had been on the lookout for one that had gears and 3 rails.

I was super excited to find one on the Facebook marketplace.

The price was good and it was close by!

The third rail enables you to load a quilt without basting it first.

That will save my back.

The gears allow you to adjust the tension on the quilt.

It can be adjusted from crib size to king size too.

I can't wait to use it!

Vacation Part 5 - Newport

It will take me a while to get all of the vacation posts done.

I'm going to make posts as soon as I can when I get to them.

;)

After our hike in Cumberland Falls Park, we drove to our friend's house in Newport, Tennessee.

These dear folks are awesome and we can't thank them enough for their hospitality.

We love y'all!

So our friends have this really cool basement that's all set up as a ministry center.

It's mainly for pastor's and their families to use as a retreat.

There are picnic tables and a grill.

Not to mention the awesome view.

This is the main room.

It has a hideaway bed and a kitchenette.

This room has a sliding glass door with the view in the above photo.

There are also two other bedrooms.

I somehow forgot to take a photo of the other one.

This bedroom also has it's own sliding glass door to the same porch.

Of course we also had to spend time upstairs with them on their screened in porch.

I did some quilting

This view never gets old.

We even played a family game.

We loved our time in Newport.

We had a few adventures in Gatlinburg, did go-carts again,

and I went to my favorite quilt shop.

Stay tuned for more vacation posts.

Made for Maggie

My cousin had a baby a couple of months ago.

I really wanted to make a quilt to celebrate this new little one.

However, I was in the middle of trying to finish Alec's graduation quilt.

After I finished that quilt we went on vacation.

When we got back I could not stop thinking about a baby quilt.

I wanted to make a quilt similar to the one pictured.

It was made by my great grandmother.

Knowing I didn't have a lot of extra time to spend making it, I compromised.

I made one block but made it large enough to make a quilt.

I've seen other quilters do this for baby quilts, which I also wanted to try.

So I accomplished both goals in one quilt.

:)

I already had the block in my quilting software.

All I did was enlarge it and print my fabric needs.

This was a simple quilt that only took a week to make.

The pinwheel center is set "on point".

AKA it's diagonal.

I had never done that before.

It was easy but I need more practice as I lost a couple of points in the process.

In the quilting world there's a saying, "Done is better than perfect."

There's another saying that's called the 20/20 rule.

If it looks good from 20 feet away going 20 mph, then it's good.

Works for me. I'm still learning.

I loved how fast this quilt came together.

I pieced together some left over fabric for the backing.

I used my new walking foot for some simple straight line quilting.

Since I got the idea for the quilt from great grandma I threw her name on the label too.

 Quilt stats:

39" x 39"

machine pieced & quilted




Maggie on her quilt!
:)

Vacation Part 4 - Travelling

After we exhausted ourselves on the Eagle Falls hike we drove several hours to our friends house.

We're always excited to start seeing the mountains.

:)

It was a beautiful day for driving.

We made our annual stop at Clinch Mountain.

It's fun to see the elevation.

That's a lot higher than the 666 feet of Rensselaer.

 We walked around for a short bit and then it was time to hit the road again.

Seeing the mountain range on the horizon never gets old.