Hand Sewingpalooza!

Maybe it is my busy work schedule, maybe it is the [seemingly] never-ending move, maybe it is just me being lazy because it has been cloudy and rainy for a few weeks (and it is never cloudy and rainy in South Texas. We are in a horrible drought!) but I just haven't been able to find the motivation to fit in sewing as of late. That being said, I have been on a mission to do sewing.

You see, I really want to work on a houndstooth cover for my vintage cedar chest reuppholstery project, but I can't find the stinking ruler I need. Here's the thing, no one in town has it so I ordered it from Amazon. It arrived a week late and broken into two pieces, so I returned it and got a full refund which left me with still no ruler. I have been to over 10 shops in the surrounding area (September is Texas shop-hop month aka Quilt Across Texas) and no one has it! Uggh. So here is my plea: Have you seen this ruler?? If so, please tell me where!

Okay! On with the sewing. First up I have a picture of all the beautiful 3" half hexies I finished basting. Well, not all. I finished 120, but had already sewn 14 together at this point. Have no fear; I will show you what I have sewn together! I have no idea how big this quilt is going to end up, but I have known from the beginning that I do not want fabrics to repeat. Luckily this gave me something to buy during the shop-hop since I couldn't buy the ruler I really wanted. Here are all my hexies!

When I travel with my hexies, I am always scared their edges are going to get bent. If I put them in a zippered pouch, they can get bent up with the bag, if I put them in a rigid pencil box, they have too much room and can slide around. I was starting to think they wouldn't be able to travel with me, and really, what is the point of an EPP project if it can't travel? Then I found an empty mask box lying around! I'm a scuba dive leader, so I have way too much scuba gear, but in this case it totally paid off! Look at how well they all fit in here!

So perfect for 3" half hexagons!
 

I had sewn one pinwheel together last week and left it at home. Then I went out of town and had some time to sew, but I had forgotten completely which direction I had the first pinwheel going. I had a 50/50 shot of getting it right and of course I got it wrong. So now I don't know which direction to sew the rest in. Ripping it apart is going to be hard. Maybe I will just make a second quilt with the pinwheels going the opposite direction. That seems like less work, right? Making an entirely separate quilt to avoid ripping out a few stitches. FYI: I said I had 14 stitched together and each pinwheel only has 6. The final two are in the upper right corner of this picture.


I also started working on the applique I'm doing for the Secret Tote Bag Swap. I'm getting so excited about it! Hopefully I will be able to suck it up and get some machine sewing done this week. :)