2015 adventures

This is my first post for 2015 which, when I looked at my last posting date, kinda surprised me. But there is a good reason. My focus for the remainder of December and the beginning of January has been to manoeuvre around all the colds and sickness around me with the goal to staying healthy for hip surgery on January 19th. It felt like a touch down when the day finally arrived and it was my turn for a total hip replacement.  After sucking it up for two plus years of hip pain I am a new woman!! Or at least I will be soon enough.

I was home after about three days and now I'm on the slow road to recovery. I am easily bored so I knew that I would need a sanity project or three to keep my occupied during rest periods. 

I got on the hexie bandwagon last year working on Grit's Le Passion Hexagon quilt.Grit's pattern can be found on her blog,  here.  It continues to amaze me just how generous some pattern designers are. I imagine that there are literally thousands of hours that Grit had put into designing and then creating her hexagon quilt. And she has shared this pattern free on her blog. Amazing!

Here is my humble beginning of Grit's quilt design:

These little guys are addictive. I've chosen to go multi-coloured on my quilt reminiscent of Moroccan tile. I'm loving it so far. 

Secondly, I'm working on hand quilting  a quilt I pieced in 2011 during the Super Bowl. It was a Super Bowl 12 hour mystery quilt and my friend Pam and I both got our tops completed. She machine quilted hers and I  decided to hand quilt mine.  Here it is 2015 and I'm still stitching away. This is a long term project with no deadline.

Here is the quilt top:

And here are some photos of the hand quilting underway:

I'm doing freehand baptist fans.  No marking needed.  This was a technique that Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville shared and it appealed to me for this rather antique looking quilt.  I am starting with the inside edges of the quilt and proceeding around the outside.  I'm now on the second row working towards the centre.  According to Bonnie, this is a different way of approaching it, rather than quilting from the centre out.

And here are my handy tools.  The pliers are a great addition for pulling those needles through the layers of the quilt.

So, that's basically what's keeping me busy during recovery.  There will probably be more blog posts.  I'm also finalizing writing up a pattern that has been on the back burner for awhile.  It's for my Amish Block Party quilt:

I'm going to start another one of these in a different colourway as a second sample soon.  Stay tuned!  I have a long way to go before I can sit at the sewing machine but I have enough to keep me busy for now anyway and inspiration to encourage my healing.

Until next time,

Mavis