Tuesday, December 31, 2013

My Weekend With Minnie

Lots of quality time was spent with Minnie this past weekend enjoying hand stitching and just winding down from the hustle and bustle of the past several weeks. Loved it! And I have a little to show for my efforts too - 6 new diamonds to add to the mix and another 6 prepped and ready for the final round of hexies.













There are 25 hexies in each of the small diamonds so every now and then I pull colours so that I can just move from one to the next. To help keep things a little more organized I prep the centre blossom and then just keep the pile of hexies for the outer border with it until it's ready to finish off.











I don't paper piece - it's just eyeballing a seam allowance and working my way through. I start by sewing each of the 6 'petals' to the centre hexie with the same thread.














Then I go back and sew the seams to connect all the petals.
















Finally, I add the two hexies that correspond with the centre piece to finish off the blossom.
















Then I match the flower up with the outer border pieces and move on to the next one until I have a little supply built up; I've got 6 more prepped & ready to go.














The last round takes about an hour to complete so they tend to come together nicely while watching TV. When they are all done they get pressed.











Of course a gal's gotta keep up her energy when doing this much work :) so I enjoyed nibbling on these amazing Vanilla Dipped Gingersnaps that our niece Julia gave us for Christmas.













Hard not to enjoy it all when sitting by the fire with this as my view. My tree will stay up for about another week so I'm determined to enjoy every last minute of it. Not a bad way to wind down 2013, is it?

A very Happy New Year to you and yours and many thanks for dropping by my blog so see what I get up to. Without you, I'd just be talking to myself...M

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Marie, I just came across your blog. In addition to the quilting, I really enjoyed reading about your baking. Christmas means baking to me too and I loved the variety of cookies that you make. I'll have to try the Toblerone shortbread and some of the others. They look delicious.

Mayleen said...

I'm so impressed you get such nice results without paper piecing the hexagons! Hand stitching is very relaxing for me also and I'm looking forward to getting back to my hexagon project someday soon.

Monica said...

I am amazed at how fast you are sewing these -- one hour for the final round? Maybe it goes faster without the paper.

Anyway, they look great. Happy New Year!

Karen H said...

Happy 2014 Marie! The gingersnaps look deelish and very pretty. Bet they would go down a treat with a nice cuppa!

Your hexagons are lovely. I didn't realize you weren't paper piecing. I am eager to see how you arrange them when you've got them all made!

All the best in 2014!

amyrdh said...

Beautiful hexies! I can't believe you eyeball those and get such perfect results. Can't wait to see how it turns out!

Turid said...

Lovely hexies! But I can't understand that you get such a nice result with that way of sewing them. Fantastic! I'm waiting for more on this work next week. Have a good weekend!

Nita said...

Wow, I don't think I could eyeball it...I need to use the papers. But I do reuse them until they are too crumpled to be of any more use! Mostly because I hate cutting them out, lol! Now I'm going to check out that cookie recipe!