Although it doesn't seem as if I've accomplished much on my hexagon project there has been lots of behind the scenes work. For one thing I threw all my scraps on the floor and sorted them by color. No small task and my back ached for days afterward. I've found that the best way for storing them is in the large laundry type baskets with oval holes in the sides. The holes enable you to easily spy that certain fabric you're looking for. Not really but you can get a good glimpse of what's in the basket.
In addition I've been auditioning settings for the hexagons. I've kind of decided on orange for the fill-in hexagons and not sure what for the centers yet. Maybe a Kaffe polkadot in various colors. That's yet to be decided. But I have settled on this arrangement, though am still rearranging the "flowers" and I have lots more to make. I enjoy making them actually and am thinking that my newly arranged scrap baskets will help speed up the process.
I've also been working on machine quilting my Ricky Timms Colorful Rhapsody project started last summer. Hope you can see some of the stippling and blanket stitch outlining the appliquéd piece. Ricky instructions have you use Steam a seam for fusing and then a stabilizer for support when doing the blanket stitch. This stabilizer then has to be removed. Very annoying and time consuming. I tried heavily--and I mean heavily--starching one area before blanket stitching and it worked just fine. Will do that in the future. Also the little pad you see in the photo is what I use to guide the quilt for the machine quilting. This is what Philippa Naylor uses in making her award winning quilts and I'm a dedicated follower of using them. It's really just shelf liner. I use one under my left hand and one under my right hand. I never did like the gloves suggested or any other project promoted for quailing. These work just fine and if you loose one you can just cut another piece off the roll. Voila!
