Spring Blossoms.....A Spring Finish

It is always a joyful feeling when a quilt one has been working on for a long time is finished. And......with the last stitch stitched on my Spring Blossoms pretty, I am beside myself with great joy! In my sewing room this past week, time has been ticking away as I finished the hand quilting and stitched the scrappy fabric binding to the quilt.

Spring blossoms is resting on the bed in the boudoir, singing a sweet Spring song, which is apt as there is just a whiff that Spring is perhaps not too far away. There is just a hint that Spring will soon be 'bustin out all over' down here. Well.....that is at least in the botanical form....it is still a wee bit chilly for my liking. Those first pretties of Spring, all things Narcissus are popping their frilly, petticoat hoop faces up from the chilly earth to greet me with a smile. I must admit when I gaze upon these sunshine-filled blooms oozing with happiness I cannot help but smile. 'Tis beginning to look rather pretty down here.

I started Spring Blossoms about this time last year. I had fallen giddy in love with stitching EPP hexies and as I stitched each flower I imagined how pretty a quilt would look with blocks of hexie flowers  in a scrappy quilt. So.....Spring Blossoms was born.

Remember these??

Each of these hexie flowers and blocks have as if by magic blossomed into a pretty spring-like quilt.

A simple quilt both in design and stitching. No PHD required here for the stitching of this pretty. The hand quilting too, was simple, just quilting around each block and the flowers. I suppose one of these days I will send one of my quilts off to a long arm quilting connoisseur, but if truth be told, I love the look and feel of a hand quilted quilt. Yes my stitches are not even in length and yes my stitches do tend to wander off the straight and narrow path but I love the soft, squishy-squashyness feel of a hand quilted quilt; something which a quilt loses when quilted within an inch of its life on one of those long arm machines. Oh, the patterns on these machines are amazingly beautiful and may I say perfect (something which I should wax lyrical about seeing as I am a tad persnickety) but somehow I am rather partial to a hand quilted pretty. I will always love the perfect imperfections of hand quilting. Besides, I find hand quilting rather therapeutic, I really, really do.....even if it seems to take forever to finish.

Another scrappy quilt to add to the collection.

There is just something about quilts that dance with scrappylicious colour and pattern and charm, isn't there. I love my Spring Blossoms quilt. It oozes with two of my favourite things in quilting....hexagons and scrappy fabrics. Will this be my last scrappy quilt?? Somehow, I don't think so.

Until the next time.........

Linking up this week to
Julie's Homemade Monday over at The Sum of Their Stories
Jann's Have a Daily Cup of Mrs Olsen.
 Freemotion By the River
Let's Bee Social
Soma's  Wandering Camera
Can I get a Whoop Whoop?

Spring is A-Comin!

'Tis Winter......but Spring is a-comin! So very happy about that. Come to think of it I am doing a happy dance. I am happily shooing away Ol' Man Winter round the bend in our country road as I have become rather weary of his frosty and cranky demeanor.

Small evidences that Spring is not far off are happening in this little neck of the woods. The garden has been rather dismal and devoid of colour these past months, but ever so slowly, the Spring bulbs are just beginning to awaken from their deep, wintry sleep and pop up their pretty, little heads to herald that Spring is a-comin.

It seems Spring is a-comin to my sewing room as well. I have been working on my EPP hexies, albeit slowly.  I have been stitching my pretty hexies into blocks of gleeful flowers. As I stitch these blossoms of delight, they do make me smile.

I used apple green and white polka dot fabric for the stems and leaves.

I have also been stitching smaller EPP hexie flowers using 3/4" hexagon papers. For the centres I thought I might use snippets of my lovely embroidered linens.

At the moment imaginations are colliding around in my brainpan as to how the hexie flowers are going to dance on the quilt. I am still playing with the design. I feel it is going to be another bright and happy scrappy quilt. Someday I am going to grow up and join the big girls who fashion quilts that require a lot of  accurate and precision stitching; I really, really will. You know the quilts; the ones that when you look at them, you scratch your head and wonder "how in the world did 'she' make that?????" Come to think of it, my Cathedral Window was a big girl's quilt and I didn't enjoy stitching that one at all. So, perhaps I will just stay in my world of rudimentary quilts and have oodles of fun. =)

Over the next week or so, I will happily sit in my sunny, sewing room and enjoy a little more hand stitching. As Ole Man Winter and his arctic-like sidekick, Jack Frost retreat and journey to those of you whom live way up there, I will dream of happy things.....Spring, warm sunshine, flowers, little birdies singing and pretty, blossom-filled quilts.

Let the birdies sing......"Spring, Spring, Spring"!

Yes indeedy, Spring is A-Comin!

I am in love!!

Yes.....I am in love. Actually, I am in love with so much of life (it is a passionate and visual kinda gal that I am) but the subject of my passion for this little while is EPP or for those of you whom are not in the know, English Paper Piecing.

LOVE.......all those itty bitty EPP hexies!

Why does EPP move me so??  Why does EPP transport me into a state of rhapsodic rapture?? =) Why......because in folding itty bitty scraps of fabric around itty bitty pieces of paper, then hand stitching each shape, every itty bitty corner lines up perfectly. Every itty bitty shape, in this case my fave shape of all time, the hexagon, snuggles perfectly to the hexagon beside, above, below; every which way. Yes indeedy, it warms the cockles of my li'l ole, persnickety heart that each shape is perfect! Me and EPP are a match made in heaven!

Now, before you heap burning coals of fire upon my head and point your finger at me chastising me regarding my perfectionist tendencies, let me assure you I am okay with the imperfections of this life.....I am.....I really, really am.  I saw the light as a wee child that nothing in this life is 'just so'. It's just that my arty farty soul is enjoying the exactness of EPP. I am loving the fact that I can sew teeny tiny, almost invisible stitches and each shape is lined up utterly, entirely, consummately......(you get the picture).......in the most perfect manner. Yes indeedy, I am loving skipping down the oft-elusive path of perfectionism, with my itty bitty EPPs in hand, happily stitching as I enjoy the view. 

My arty farty soul is having the best of times with my itty bitty EPP hexies, fashioning flowers as I go. Instead of using paper shapes for my hexies, I have used iron on shapes. I wouldn't use iron-on paper if I was fashioning a whole quilt entirely of EPP hexies, but as this quilt will be one made of blocks with a hexie flower in each block it should be fine. The dear lady in the quilting shop assured me the iron-on paper would slowly dissolve, so throwing caution to the wind I decided to give them a go. If over time it doesn't work I will let you know, shall I.

As you can see I have continued to build teetering, tottering piles of hexies, both for my scrappy quilt-as-you-go quilt and for the EPP quilt. Love, love, LOVE!!

Colour my world with hexies!

I am continuing to work on my scrappy, quilt-as-you-go hexie as well as English Paper Piecing. My scrappy quilt has grown much too big for stitching in the car as we (my good husband and my good self) meander through the countryside. There has been talk around town of the strange man who drives around the countryside with a movable quilt next to him in the passenger seat. Thus the need to have a smaller stitch-wherever-you-go, pretty. Somewhere underneath these folds and folds of a hexie quilt, is a woman. Somewhere underneath this pretty, is li'l ole me! =)

I have also been stitching lengths of fabric strips to cover the seams at the back of my quilt-as-you-go pretty. My persnickety tendencies again. I like to cover the back seams with fabric as it looks lovely and also makes the quilt stronger. Besides, by doing this one has two quilts in one. Sounds 'perfect' to me!

My EPP quilt is going to be a simple one (famous last words). It will be a quilt made of  blocks with each hexie flower being the star attraction. Each block will be bordered by scrappy 2 inch squares....but then I have been known to change my mind.

I don't know why me and EPP have taken forever to become acquainted. Strange really, considering my love for hexagons. I have been falling down the rabbit hole of Pinterest of late and have been oohing and aahing over the Milliefiore and La Passacaglia quilts that all those clever souls are stitching at the moment. Be still my beating heart! Each and every one is truly the most magical work of art. Someday I would love to dance along the bejewelled Milliefiore, geometrical pavement and stitch one of these exquisite quilts, but for now this arty farty soul is loving stitching my sweet, little itty bitty hexie flowers.

Until the next time............