I Heart Hexies!

I have been busy adding to my hexagon quilt which is a slow process- my fingers are quite sore. Here is a little peek... 

But I recently took a break and was inspired to make this bag by a pillow I saw over at Fabric Mutt.  Please check out her site- she has lots of neat tutorials!

This project was fast and easy and uses hexies (my favorite). The navy fabric was quilt that I found at a garage sale last summer that I fully intended to use to make bags. However, I got cold one night last fall and it has been on my bed ever since. The handle used to be curtains. I have enough fabric to make 8 bags- so excited!  Now I just need to decide on a top to finish for a new bed quilt- its going to be 30 degrees this weekend here in sunny Florida.

Heart Baby Quilt with Flannel Back

I found this lovely, easy pattern at Blue Elephant Stitches.  Check out this site- she makes lots of beautiful quilts and takes the nicest pictures! 

I used 3 inch squares from my scrap bin- some of the neutral squares are brighter squares turned over.  Sometimes if you have a medium fabric that isn't dark enough to be considered a dark, you can flip it over and have a light. I have heard of people doing this and now I know it works!

Now, I am a pretty good "piecer" but not a good "quilter."  I can't hand quilt, and my machine quilting stitches are so bunched up and ugly, so I used a floral flannel for the back and no batting.  It goes against everything that I know, but I stretched it on the floor, pinned front to back and "quilted" it on my machine with just the regular quarter inch foot- no walking foot. I did a criss-cross pattern and it turned out sooo good- like a professional-good.

The baby who received this lives in Florida, so it doesn't have to be warm.  I see more no-batting quilts in my future!

Horse T-shirt Quilt

Here is a quilt I made for a friend who was really involved with horses.  I guess its like if you are a runner and every race you run gets you a t-shirt- she went to lots of horse events.

This is the first and only quilt I have ever made using t-shirts.  I just kinda made it up as I went along- its about a twin size.  I took the shirts to the fabric store and tried to coordinate some of the colors.  

After I added the iron on stabilizer, I squared up the pictures.  Every one was a different size, so I just added fabrics until they were the same size as the next square.  If you've ever pieced a quilt back from extra yardage and left over quilt blocks, this is about the same method.   

The letter blocks were stitched on an embroidery machine. (Her horse's name was Shoshoney)

I added some easy quilt blocks to make it interesting and to take up space. 

This horse block was found online under "horse coloring pages."  I figure coloring book pages are usually pretty simple and easy to copy and embroider. I just traced the pieces, ironed on the fabric, cut the pieces out, peeled off the paper, ironed them on to the backing fabric and used a blanket stitch around the edges.

  I was concerned that it would feel stiff, but if feels just like any other quilt without all the stabilizer.  Overall, I think it turned out really good and would do it again.