In a Pickle!

Ya know, Cathy is such a good bad good bad good bad ...umm... strong influence on me!  She says 'squirrel' and I commence to chasing.

Because look what happened...

I got pickled.

Now I've got some decisions to make.  Continue with paper piecing like I did with this pickle?
I'm not wild about the detritus.  I'd definitely go back to my usual freezer paper technique.

And I'm not so sure that hand piecing wouldn't be just as fast (or even possibly faster) than machine piecing.

I'm also thinking I might want to go a little bigger...

Since it's pink, I'll be linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday!  Come see all the fun!  There might be pickles!  And squirrels!

A little sleight of hand(work)

I recently realized that I haven't mentioned this quilt in quite a while.  I've been happily (and slowly) (very slowly) handquilting it for absolutely forever.

Little by little,

inch by inch,

I'm getting it done.  Well, the center part is almost done - then onward to the borders!
My quilting isn't what it used to be, between old eyes and creeping arthritis, but it means a lot to me to finish this by hand.  It's going to my youngest daughter when I finally get that last stitch in.

I really enjoy doing handwork, but I've been thinking a lot lately about coming up with a handwork project that's more portable than a gigantic quilt.  I go visit my kids often enough that it would be nice to have a suitable traveling project.
La Passacaglia is in the running, since I got Millefiori Quilts for Christmas and have been drooling all over the pages ever since.  But I've also been thinking along the lines of a simpler hexie quilt as a way to warm up to the precision of La Pass.  (See?  I can occasionally be sensible.  Sort of.)

Then I saw these blocks inspired by this quilt and fell head over heels in love.
So I took one of the diamonds for a test drive.

I'm using the flat back whipstitch to sew the hexies together, which has the advantage of the stitching being almost invisible  on the front.  It also seems to be easier to fit the hexies together by working with them flat, though that might just be me.

For the first diamond, I tried glue basting.  I'm going to use thread basting for the second one, then decide which technique I like better.

Oh, did I mention the size?

Yeah.  Wee little hexies.

Well, you know what I always say -
Go Small or Go Home.


I'm linking with Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more Fun than Housework, and at Slow Sunday Stitching (for the first time!) at  Kathy's Quilts.  Come see all the beautiful work!