Teepee and canoe, the man in the moon and another hexagon project

I've completed another tiny world make-do pincushion. I found this wonderful pottery dish at the local thrift shop. I liked the earthiness of this dish and thought it needed a pincushion with an outdoor theme.

So here it is.....a teepee and a canoe that are lakeside. This was a fun pincushion to make and it is my own design! I call it Teepee at M'Chigeeng. M'Chigeeng is a town and a lake on Manitoulin Island. It is the largest fresh water island in the world and it is located on one of the Great Lakes, Lake Huron.

Here is a close-up of the teepee and canoe.

I had promised to show you some close-ups of the hand quilting in A Pound of Stars. My camera and computer are co-operating (for the time being) so I was able to take some pictures. I started at the edge of the squares and simply quilted concentric squares until I got to the middle. I had no idea how to mark a quilt so this was a perfect solution!

Here you can see an even larger area which is made up of four squares. Rather than quilt them individual I quilted them as one large square.

In the ice cream cone border I quilted a crescent moon, Saturn, stars and in each corner the man in the moon.

Close-up of the man in the moon

Finally I've decided on just one more hexagon project. This one should be relatively quick and easy because it is entirely machine pieced with 4 1/2" hexagons and equilateral triangles. The quilt is in this lovely book. I don't normally make quilts from patterns but there are some lovely ideas in this book so I just couldn't resist. I'll put my own touches with colour selection and quilting!

The name of the quilt is Hexagon and Blue Star.

 

 

I have a nice pile of charm squares many of which are more along the line of reproduction fabrics and I think they will look great as large hexagons.

 



 

I've been through my stash and selected the background ad border fabrics.

I have had the lighter blue fabric for some time and I thought it would work well. It is a nice soft blue with a hint of green so it will work as a neutral and really show off some more colourful fabrics. I recently saw this striped fabric and decided it is the perfect inner border. I'll use only the blue stripe because I think the yellow and golds are a little more subtle and they add a nice highlight.

The first step will be to make the hexagon templates to make the cutting go a little faster. The second step will be to cut the border strips from the length of the fabric so I don't have to piece the border and from the leftovers I will cut the equilateral setting triangles.

Until I post again, why not keep me company and start another hexagon project?

Constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing the hexagon, Saturn rock and more!

The hexagon…..a simple six side shape with all kinds of possibilities! The six sides are equilateral. I’m not a math genius but I know that a circle is 360^o. Since there are six sides to a hexagon this means there are six angles so if we divide 360^o by 6 each angle in each corner is 60^o. This is interesting, helpful and necessary information if you want to construct your own hexagon patterns. That may be the subject of another post but not today – today we are going to take the hexagon apart (deconstruct) and put it back together (reconstruct)!

There are many ways to deconstruct a hexagon but today I will show you two simple methods along with a couple of suggestions as to how to reconstruct them. A hexagon can be divided into three diamonds. We know that all of the angles will be 60^o and the sides will all measure the same length. Three diamonds make a hexagon!
 

Use three diamonds and fussy cut the fabric to reconstruct hexagons that looks like this!
 

Six diamonds make a star motif.

 

Another six diamonds to fill in the spaces brings you back to the basic hexagon but it will be considerably larger than the original hexagon.

 

And you can make interesting hexagons. Here are a few examples!
 

Do some of these fabrics look familiar? They should…I used this fabric to make Flora and Fauna, Partsof the Garden!

The second deconstruction I will show is this: divide the hexagon into six triangles! Note that if you put two triangles together it takes you back to a diamond shape. More on that another day! For now here is the hexagon divided.

 

And here is an example of what you might do with the triangles!

And now for the “Saturn Rock” part of my post, I present a curio from Misery Bay on Manitoulin Island. About 16 years ago we were hiking with a gaggle of kids and one of the lads came across a very unusual rock. We all remarked that it looked like the planet Saturn hence the name! I fell in love with it but it was heavy and the hike back was very long, hot and bug infested so we had to leave it behind. The next morning I went out on the cottage deck and there was Saturn rock! One of the young lads knew how much I wanted the rock so he stuffed it in his backpack and lugged it all the out. During the night he came to our cottage and delivered it! We’ve said that we will save the rock and when he settles down in his own home we will give it to him as a house warming gift! Isn’t it interesting? It now lives in our garden just waiting for its new home!

 

And last of all, the Siberian irises are blooming. Yesterday they were just buds and today they have burst open in a riot of purple! They are so lovely!

 

Until I post again, happy sewing!

Baskets and Nine Patches, very old curios and more pictures of the Nostalgia quilt!

I’m making progress on Baskets and Nine Patches but it is slow. Quilting melon wedges on those nine patches is time consuming but worth the effort….well I think it is worth the effort! I like a flat quilt so this one will be very flat! In the first picture all of the nine patches are quilted and in the second the bottom nine patch is not yet quilted.

 

 I’ve looked at the baskets and the bases are going to need some quilting so I’ll have to think about what to do there.

I’ve always had an interest in fossils and rocks. My desk at work is covered with them! They are a great conversation starter because people always want to know what they are and more importantly, why I have them on my desk. I have them because I like them. And they are beautiful! This is a group of little bivalves that I found at Bridal Veil Falls in Kagawong on Manitoulin Island. If you sort through the clay you can find whole fossilized bivalves completely free of any rock. It is so exciting to find them!

 

This “fossil” is a frog, Latin name Rana. While the rock is from Manitoulin Island, the frog is not. It was a rainy day and there was going to be no rock hounding I got creative! I used acrylic paints to make my own fossil! I had a fossil identification book so the image is more or less accurate. I’ve fooled a lot of people with this one!

 

My brother really liked my fossil paintings so when he renovated his bathroom he asked me to paint tiles for him. He purchased tiles that looked like sandstone; I pulled out the tile paints and the fossil identification guides and got started! Once the tiles were painted they were baked in a warm oven so that the paint would bond to the tile. He has the tiles in the bathroom and the shower enclosure and many years later they still look like new! It is a man cave for sure!

  

 

 

 

And lastly, a few more pictures from Mom’s Nostalgia quilt!

Lady's Slipper (they'll be blooming soon!)

Sampler

Foxglove

Blue butterfly

Until I post again, happy sewing!