Itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, purple polkadot...

Well, not a bikini.  I've got some purple polkadot hexies though...

This is intended to be a long-range, multi-year project, so I don't mind poking along with it.

As nearly as I can tell from looking at my inspiration picture, I'll be making hexie diamonds, joining four of them into a larger diamond unit, then running a row of hexies all around it for a border.  Then four of those diamonds are joined together, with another border around that.  Then repeat until it's big enough or I'm bored with it, whichever comes first.  Or until I run out of fabric, I suppose.  (Yeah, right.)

I've figured out that I can fit a hexie paper into a 1 1/2" x 1 3/8" rectangle, so I've been cutting stacks of pieces that size out of 1.5" strips.  Then I stack the rectangles with a hexie paper on top and cut them roughly into hexagons with scissors.

I've been cutting my hexie 'papers' out of those annoying subscription cards that they stuff into magazines.  I experimented and found that cardstock was too heavy, but regular paper wasn't heavy enough.  My hexies are so small that it was a real puzzler - until I found those cards hit that sweet spot between those two paper weights.  (I keep running out, though, since we don't get that many magazines.)  (My relatives that do take a lot of magazines will be hearing from me soon.)

If you take a close look at those papers in the upper right corner of that photo, you can see the telltale postage-paid marks!

As for the tiny size of my hexies, it's purely arbitrary.  I ordered one of these squeezy tools

online for cutting out papers (Easy and lazy!  Double win!), and assumed that when they said 3/4", they were referring to the side measurement.  Turns out that quilters and papercrafters measure hexagons differently - that three-quarter inch was the diameter of the hexie, not the side.  The side measures 1/2", so I'm making half inch hexies.  Tada!  (I could have returned the squeezy tool, but a)that's a lot of bother and b)hey, look, a challenge!)  (Which explains a lot about my life, I realize...)

So, I'm slowly stitching away at these little monsters beauties, and will be for years to come.

Linking to Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework (because oh my yes with the scrappy), and with Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts (because oh my yes with the slow).

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!

Of course I'm not starting a new project...

Because, you know, I have so many already going.

Seriously.  I don't know where those stars came from.

Linking with Oh Scrap at Quilting is More Fun than Housework, since those entirely imaginary stars are made of imaginary scraps.