Feeling thankful

How about a new blog post? It's been a while, but two "no signal" vacations later and I am ready to start again. We spent a beautiful 3 days in Northern Minnesota and then spent 8 days traveling through South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. I encourage everyone to take a "no signal" vacation. Especially with your children. It was great to unplug.

Beautiful view at the Big Hole Battle Field in Montana.

I'm going to share with you a project that I worked on, off and on the last few months, and just finished this week. I love all things hexagon. I also love the Noteworthy fabric line. I don't usually feel the need to buy a ton of fabric, but I would buy every bolt in this line if I could. This was a great combo of my two favorites.

I have a friend who I met online when we were both expecting our "Junebug" babies back in 2001. Kelly is a fabulous sewing queen and photographer. She has a blog Handmade Boy you need to check out. Not only does she sew and take pictures, she can design things on the computer. How is that for technical jargon? That's how much I can't design things on the computer. So she has also designed the cover for my patterns and my business cars (with hexis of course). Yeah, she's pretty awesome.

As a thank you for her amazing work and support, I sent this table runner to her, along with some coasters. Which were also super easy to put together. 

You an see why I hired a photographer. ;)

These coasters are made from leftovers of a charm pack. No cutting, no measuring, just quilting and finishing. Yeah, nice and simple. I used the same backing and just lined up the batting and charm squares.

Then I used my walking foot and did a basting stitch around the outside of each one. That made quilting them much easier, as they will slide. 

Once they were quilted I did square them up, because I'm particular that way, but you would certainly be able to leave them as is. 

I used this tutorial from Crazy Mom Quilts to bind the coasters. It worked pretty well, and I think they turned out pretty cute. 

I used English Paper Piecing for my hexis and put them together in a pleasing to me pattern. Then added borders and quilted it. I love the backing. I stuck in an extra piece, because when I was cutting I wasn't really paying attention, and I could have lined up the birds on the wire perfectly, had I paused just a moment. But since I didn't, and I'm kind of a perfectionist about those things, I faked my way through to the perfect backing. ;)

Of course I forgot to take a picture of the back when it was finished.

I hope she enjoys the gifts, but really I hope she feels how appreciated she is in this crazy adventure called quilt designing.

Happy Stitching!

Jen

I have linked up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Friday. That Hexi Pin cushion she shares today is from a Hexi Love class I taught at a quilt retreat she was also teaching at. How cool is that??!!