Yesterday's Mail

 

Yesterday was a Good Mail day™ because my subscription box from Pink Door Fabrics arrived. It is chock o' block as per usual with all kinds of fun stuff. But I have to say, I really really enjoy the boxes and have a hard time throwing them away. I've been using them for storing current projects, they're roomy enough and easy to move around. Better than buying even more P.O.T.S. (Plastic Organizer Thingies).

There's always a pattern included and this one is super intriguing to me, I've always liked this block but have never tried it (due to the curves and needing to make templates. Well, it includes the acrylic templates, and equipment for doing it EPP style. There also directions for piecing it by machine. We shall see. I quite like the examples on the pattern cover of the fussy cutting these great Tula Pink fabrics.

I'm excited about the Renaissance Ribbons that were included, they're so pretty and match the fabric so well. Another Sewline fabric glue pen is always useful, now I can have one in my to-go box and one in my workroom, some very pointy butterfly scissors, John James Milliners needles, a spool of DecoBob for hand sewing. Oh and a package of seeds, alyssum.

There was also a swatch deck with pictures of each of the prints in the Untamed fabric line. Not sure what those are really for, maybe I can use them in a collage?

Untamed is all about flowers,  there are no animals included in any of these. Except for the check and houndstooth fabrics, it's all gorgeous flower or plant related shapes like seeds..

I really enjoy the variation of patterns used in the backgrounds of the florals.

I'm really into the rainbow houndstooth fabrics. And the patterns on the seeds (or water droplets).

The neons are Very Neon.

A lot of these would play very well with other Tula Pink fabric lines, there are similar motifs that are similar and the colors would work together.

The Tula Pink solids are super pretty. The fabric quality is very good for a solid.

The neon checkerboards are super stinky with the heavy neon print. It's very stiff and plasticky as well. I hope that it washes out and softens somewhat.

Always fun to check out the selvedges.

I like the colors on the selvedge being represented in water droplet (or seed) shapes.

I used my laundry marker to write in the names of the solids, just in case I end up needing more of one color.

A Place For Hexies

 I had this toppling over stack of hexies ready to go and I was worried they were going to get mixed in with the mess of scraps from working on the Scrap Tape. So they needed a place to hang out together and I had saved a magnetic closure box that was close to the right shape and size. Formerly housed a FitBit. Of course I needed a rainbow, so I used some Inktense blocks on some heavy sketchbook paper.

After brushing on some water and letting the rainbow dry, I trimmed it down to close to the exact size and glued it into the base of the box.

I had to cover up the FitBit logo and UPC codes with some nearly matching washi tape.

It's a really nice box, heavy and a solid closure that sticks with no fiddling around. 

It fits all the hexies I have so far with lots of room for more. I could even have a little sewing kit in here.

A rainbow of Hexies in a rainbow box. Now to sew some together....

Hexie Time

EEeeeepp, so I'm actually doing some EPP while I'm laying about and recovering.

I found a very nice set of free templates for hexagons and printed them out on card stock.

I had done my initial stab at trying out some hexies way back in 2016 with a little kit I picked up at QuiltCon, and they were 3/4". 

To try and add to this existing flower, I printed out the 1"hexie template that I had just downloaded at 75% scaling and it worked out perfectly. I just had to hand-write on each one 3/4" so that I don't get them mixed up.

I also bought myself a set of literally the only EPP papers that they had at my LQS the day before my surgery. These have a lightweight fusible on one side, and are made out of 50% water soluble material and 50% stabilizer. This means that they are intended to stay in after you've stitched the hexies together. These are 1", so they will not fit in with the 3/4" ones I began experimenting with (I guess?) unless there are some shapes that could go in-between? But I really do like the idea of the fusible, a pretty innovative idea. The instructions are pretty clear, so I'll give these a go just to try them out. They also sell sheets of the appliqué paper that they're cut from, which could be cut in a Cricut to custom shapes and sizes....

I was going to try out these 1" fusible hexie "papers" with the hexie fabric that was included in the Best Besties Box as well as doing some fussy cutting of motifs and then some of the solids too. It seemed like too good of a coinky-dink to ignore. 

But then I discovered that the hexie print is exactly 3/4", so I switched plans.

I found my Sewline glue pen and got to work after fussy cutting out some of the hexies.

Pretty nice!

It went pretty fast getting these 11 hexies cut and glued.

They're very fun to play around with. I can see why people find them sort of addictive.

Definitely a lot of fun. And I haven't even started stitching yet.

I don't think the new hexies play all that well with the original flower, but nothing says these all have to end up in a quilt or project together. For now I'm just having fun playing with them.

Product Review: Tula Pink Sew-Tites

The Sew-tites that I already have are great, and I find them very useful for all sorts of things. But the cute new heart-shaped ones that Tula Pink designed are just plain irresistible. 

They arrived in this lovely turquoise/teal padded envelope, and it turns out, they're really fun and easy to use.

 I really like the heart shape, it's very easy to hold when doing EPP because the heart is a lot easier to keep a firm grip without stressing your fingers.

Tula Pink's adorable product intro video is here. She talks about using them for EPP and also sewing materials like vinyl and cork where pins can't be used without permanently damaging the materials.

No tangling your thread around pins! I hate when that happens, and it happens to me a lot, so it's really nice and smooth going. Both the metal and plastic edges of these are absolutely smooth, so no snagging.

 

And just like that done. The package comes with five magnetic pin hearts, so you can prepare a few EPP shapes ahead of time, stitch them all down, then do up another batch. Makes for a very portable project too, in my opinion the less pins I'm carrying around the better.

Very easy to use, I really recommend these. 

And look at that, an almost fussy-cut star in the almost center of the hexie.

Definitely more practice needed there for me.

First Try at EPP

 I have been bitten by the EPP (English Paper Piecing) bug that's been going around lately. I got this freebie starter-kit when I was at the Modern Quilt Guild QuiltCon and it was sitting there taunting me. It had these cute little squares of fabrics and precut paper shapes. It looked easy, but I kept putting it off.

But then I kept seeing pictures of the La Passacaglia quilt that were calling to me. There was a good deal with the templates and papers on MassDrop that was expiring, so I gave myself a deadline. If I didn't finish this little teeny project, then I couldn't order the big package of papers and templates to make this very complicated EPP quilt. For the main reason that I have never ever even tried EPP.

So the night the deal was expiring, I sat down and did it, in like an hour. And to my total surprise, instead of being frustrated with fiddliness, I found it oddly relaxing. I get why people are into EPP now. And I can see myself doing an EPP project like the La Passacaglia. Oh let's be honest here: Long Term Project.