Make Time for Quilting

Make time for quilting!
Everyone is very busy these days. “Working from home” is basically like working around the clock. A recent poll conducted showed 64% of folks “working from home” are spending an additional 8 hours working on the weekends! How are we supposed to find time for quilting? Here are some tips on finding time for some much needed relaxation through our favorite hobby:

  • Keep your sewing station set up – I had a small place and I used to sew on my kitchen island. This meant setting up and cleaning up multiple times per day for meals. It was such a hassle that I was discouraged from even getting out my sewing stuff in the first place. I later moved to a tiny sewing table in the corner of the living room, where it could stay set up all the time. Now I can sit down to sew for just a few minutes here or there. Even a few minutes a day makes a world of difference to me.
  • Get up earlier – My other half grew up on a farm and always jokes about “getting up earlier”. I am not a morning person, but I gave this a shot and it really works! Instead of working all day and waiting to have your “me time” after you are exhausted, try getting up an hour earlier so you can get in some sewing while you’re fresh and optimistic about the day. I’ve also found that starting out the day doing something fun makes the rest of the work day seem less tedious.
  • Double dinners – Everyone needs to eat, but why waste time cooking every single day? Cook a double batch one night and enjoy no cooking and less dishes the next day. Fill your freed up time with more quilting. Get your other half to do the same thing and now you are only cooking once every four days!

I hope you can be creative and find some time for quilting today!

Six Fun Things You Can Make with Hexies

Put a hex on it

Quilting with hexagons, “hexies” for short, might not be new, but it is definitely trending now. Most of you have probably seen one of the most famous examples of a hexagon quilt, Grandma’s Flower Garden. One little hexagon in the middle surrounded by six others as “petals” makes a charming flower motif. Stitch up a few zillion of these, by hand if you are really determined, and you can have a beautiful heirloom quilt. But what else can we make from this fun shape? Let’s take a look:

  • Pincushion – Make two hexie flowers as described above, stitch with right sides together leaving a small space for turning, stuff and whip stich closed. You’ll have flowers on your sewing desk all year long.
  • Easiest table topper ever – Start with one hexie of any size, let’s say 6”, and stitch strips to each of the six sides in a concentric fashion. Stop anytime when the topper is big enough for your taste. Go festive with holiday themed fabrics or scrappy to use up some stash.
  • Coasters – Make a sandwich of fun prints with a middle layer of stiff interfacing such as TimTex. If you make the bottom hexagon 1” larger all around than the top, you can do an easy self-binding.
  • I-Spy Quilt – Use a 4”, 5” or 6” template to fussy-cut novelty fabrics for an I-Spy quilt that is as much fun to make as it is to gift.
  • Needle Book – Make two lined and finished hexies for the front and back with a few felt “pages” in between. Blanket stitch them all together on one side and the only thing you will lose your needles in is cuteness.
  • The Perfect Portable Project – Once you’ve mastered this shape with some of these easier projects, make Grandma proud by tackling your own Grandma’s Flower Garden quilt. Those handfuls of little hexagons make the best take-along project ever. You can take everything you need with you in a lunch baggie – no sewing machine needed!

Have fun with some hexies today!

Not Those Scissors

Don’t even think about using my scissors for that

My family is always taking my scissors. It’s bad enough that they take them, but then what they use them for is even worse. My poor scissors have been used for everything from cutting tortillas (thanks, kids!) to roof flashing. Trying to keep the family from using your good scissors is a true exercise in futility.

Recently, I saw an ostensibly clever product for sale in a quilting magazine. It was a set of rubbery silicone tags (like those “bracelets for a cause” that everyone wears) with the “appropriate” use printed on them along with a corresponding icon. One was for paper, one for thread and another for fabric. Although adorable, I think this product will totally miss its mark because the very concept of the product insinuates that the offender does not know that they are using the scissors for the wrong purpose. The problem is that, to the uninitiated, there are no special purpose scissors. To non-quilters, scissors are scissors. They cut. They make one piece into two pieces. Any scissors can be used to bifurcate any thing.

You can try these cute little tags if you want but I think the only real way to keep your quilting scissors from being used to prepare tonight’s dinner or repair the roof is to hide them. Hide them, and just to be really safe, sprinkle a dozen or so cheap “decoy” scissors all over the house. You know, the kind you get for a dollar at the office supply store at back-to-school time. Sure, they won’t cut fabric or even paper worth a darn, but you know your family is just going to use them to cut wire anyway.