I still need about fifteen more Hexagons to finish this quilt.  Every day I’ve been sewing more on to it, thinking I will finish it that session.  But no, because most of the hex’s have six seams, six seams that need to be done individually.  Line up patch, pin it, flip top to correct side, carefully place needle at previous seam line, sew four stitches, back track, sew seam, carefully to next seam line, back track, cut threads.  I’m a chain piecer, this constant stop/start stuff is hard for me.  I will persevere though, and I know that it’ll be finished today. Looking at it now, it needs a bit of pressing too.

 

Another top I finished this week was the Mayflower block quilt.  I have not thought of a name for it yet.  Plus, I’m not sure I like it that much.  There is something about the green that bugs me, it’s too yellow maybe.  I am going to try, with the quilting, to bring out the “circles” that are optically formed by the HSR combos.  I may even try metallic thread…

In other news this week I attended PIQF.  I went on Friday with a non-quilty friend, it was her first show.  I think she liked it too.  My favorite comment of hers came when we were going towards the exit.  We walked down one of the vendor aisles, and she asked “Do people buy fabric here too?” I laughed a bit, and answered yes.  I managed not to buy anything that day.  Saw some very nice quilts too.  I particularly liked the Post Modern collection.

As usual the international entries were lovely too.   There was one that had a blue ribbon (first place, traditional) on it, a red and white mariners compass medallion type quilt. It was made by Keiko Ike, called “American Spirit”, that was particularly appealing to me.  Here are a few iPhone pictures of it –

Look at the way she used machine embroidery stitches to SID around the pieces.  It really added to the look of this quilt.  The piecing is impeccable too. Some of the white and red piping looked like it was applied after the quilting, see how the daisy (so cute) flower stems are under it? I think if you click on the pictures above they will enlarge.  It was truly a work of stitching art.

I returned on Saturday to take a half day class and do some retail therapy.  Yes, there was fabric and thread acquisition.

Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.