Fifteen-Flower Wednesday!

Even though I haven't been posting regularly...okay, even though I haven't been posting at all, I'm still making flowers.

There are fifteen of those little beauties there, and more are cut out and safely tucked away in my little sewinig box.

I've been looking through books and magazines for pictures of old hexagon quilts. I'm still torn between setting these edge-to-edge, or putting light-colored hexagons between each flower. I did see a picture of a quilt that used dark setting "stones," so that's a possibility too. I'll do some layouts and take pictures to get a better idea of what I want to do.

As usual, you can pop over to Karen's blog for the links to other flower-makers.

I did some tidying up of my sidebar. I fixed the "ticker" for my 10,000 Hour Challenge and added a new button. Yep, I'm all about challenges lately, therefore the 250 Words a Day Challenge (the button links to the Inkygirl site for writers.) I think the original challenge was for 1000 words a day, but I have to start small! I may be able to bump it up to 500 and then 1000 words, but I'd rather have to do that than to start at 1000 and be so overwhelmed that I quit. A challenge isn't much good if it scares you right out of doing the thing you want to do! I'm working on a short story right now, so 250 words a day makes me feel like I'm making good progress.

At the moment, my biggest challenge seems to be enduring this stinkin' hot weather! What's your challenge du jour?

Start-Over Sunday

Whoops, time slipped away from me there. I find that I really struggle during the summer. July and August find me in a funk, and I have to work my way out of it slowly.

I'm still working on my hexagons for the One-Flower Wednesdays; pictures will be coming this week. I've finished the Tour de Fleece, and though I didn't post in any of the threads on Ravelry, I did get done what I had hoped to.

Where I've really fallen down has been on violin practice, and I'm not sure why, exactly. I was really feeling good about the Challenge, and had been playing every day. Then suddenly...nothing. So I listened to some of my favorite violin pieces on my iPod last night, and I remembered why I want to play the violin.  So I've been playing today, and I'm determined to get some time in every single day.

The daily thing is what really makes a difference, I've found. After five days in a row, I could zip through the scales and etudes I'd been working on with very little effort. I found myself not having to read each and every single note on the page, something my teacher promised me would happen in time. She always likened it to reading words. We don't read by seeing each individual letter in each individual word--our brains have learned that when we see this set of three letters: CAT; we know what it says without having to think about how each letter sounds. As we improve as readers, we can read entire phrases in a glance. And that is what I find is happening as I play. I'm not reading each note--instead I see the phrases in the bars of music, and my muscles play them without my brain having to THINK about it. It's very very cool. And now I'm beginning to understand how professional soloists can play 45-minute long concertos from memory. It's still amazing, but I can see how they have to organize the music to memorize it in blocks instead of individual notes. Kind of like how we might memorize a poem stanza by stanza.

So it doesn't seem like much has been happening at Chez Spingirl, but I have the usual Project Pile going. I'll have pictures up as the week goes on.

Blooming Away!

More flowers!

I've seen so many pretty versions of this. If you look here, you'll find a list of blogs where you can see what other quilters are doing.

Check out the rest of Karen's blog, too--she has a number of great projects going. I'm especially interested in her "Dear Jane" quilt. Why? Oh...well...no special reason...

 As you can see, I'm still going strong!

Now I'm finding that the hardest part is tracing around the plastic template for my sewing lines. I may have been better off using paper piecing after all!

Janet from Quiltsalott isn't doing the SAL as far as I know, but look how beautiful her flowers are! Her blog is one of my favorites. Australian quilters seem to have a different way of using color, and Janet's color sense and workmanship are extraordinary. I suspect the whole color thing has something to do with being able to look out the window and see this (scroll down to the last picture.) Or these. Or this (scroll again!) Honestly, it makes me feel like I live in the Land of Boring Creatures. All I usually see when I look out my window are grackles and sparrows amongst the crabgrass. Anyway, not to be all fangirly, but it's really worth it to read the whole blog from the start. She has everything--great pictures, great quilts, great tutorials, great recipes, even a few squee-worthy baby pictures!

Sometime soon I need to figure out exactly how many hexagon flowers I'll need for a quilt. Then again, maybe it's not something I need to know at the moment! I might be better off just letting the blooms pile up in their basket before I discover that I need 1500 of them (totally made-up number, BTW.) Oh dear. What if I run out of fabric?? (Exit Lisa, laughing hysterically...)

And We're Off!

Saturday marked the start of the Tour de France, and for us Fiberheads, it was also the start of Tour de Fleece. I've had a tough time narrowing down my choices. So much fiber! So little time!

I think I have it figured out, though. On the Jensen wheel is fiber from Rogue Adventures.

It's the Blueberry Cobbler colorway on Bluefaced Leicester. I have two braids, and I'm splitting each one, then spinning and plying them back together.

I'm a little concerned about how well the color sections will match up. I don't think I split the first braid very evenly. But I had a wee brainstorm yesterday evening as I was fretting over it, and realized I could split the second braid into roughly the same thicknesses as I had the first one, and match the fatter part from the first braid to the fatter part of the second braid. The color sections still may not be exact since they're different braids and the sections may be slightly longer or shorter, but I have a feeling that it will be a bit closer if I do it that way. I'm trying to relax and just let it be however it's going to be, but that's not easy! Perfectionism, I haz it. Well, at least in fiber projects. Housekeeping, not so much.

Also for TdF, I'm trying to finish some of the smaller projects on the spindles. I showed a picture of some of those a couple of posts back (and totally gave away my fondness for PINK!!) but I have a few others that I want to get done.

Clockwise from top: Spanish Peacock, Kundert, Sp. Peacock, Trindle, Houndesign, Butterfly Girl

Some of these were fiber samples that I got when I was planning the now-defunct Etsy shop, so I'm not even 100% sure what they all are. So much for my record-keeping skills. I can tell which ones have silk in them, though. I love spinning silk on a spindle. And you can see that I do spin colors other than PINK!!!

I'm in a couple of TdF teams on Ravelry, but I haven't actually posted any pictures there yet. I like having challenges like this--it keeps me focused--but what with the 10K Challenge and the One-flower Wednesday SAL, I'm kind of busy. I think the blog will give me enough "accountability" to keep on track.

Speaking of challenges, off to play violin! See you tomorrow for OFW*!

*One-flower Wednesday

And The Winner Is...

Loredena!! She left a comment on the first post, and I pulled the little slip of paper with her name on it out of the bag just a moment ago. Congratulations, Loredena! You can either email your address to me here (spingirlspins AT gmail DOT com) or PM me on Ravelry.

Thank you to everyone who commented on my new blog. I tried to reply to all the comments, but I may have missed a few, so I apologize--I certainly do read them all!

Onward and upward. I'm going to go play violin for a while, then I think the evening will be spent on girly things. I actually made it out for a haircut today and picked up a bottle of Chardonnay on the way home. I'm going to put on the moisturizing pack my stylist (who is also my sister-in-law) gave me, and do something with my horrible lizardy feet. I went ice skating this morning, and the feet need a nice long soak and some serious balm. While I'm at it, I'll give a plug here for Aubrey's site, Goodies Unlimited. Her "Everything Balm" is terrific stuff, and Aubrey was kind enough to put a little sample in each of the goodie bags we got at Stringtopia in April. My feet will love me for it!

For my readers in the USA, have a safe and cool holiday weekend! To everyone, talk to you later, and thanks for reading!

More Flowers!

Looky what we have here:

Yep, more flowers.

Even though this is supposed to be One-flower Wednesday...

...obviously I'm sort of an overachiever!

They're fun to make, but the best part is choosing the fabrics. I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying that!

I had thought I would sew these using the paper-piecing method, where you cut hexagons out of paper, baste the fabric over them, and whip-stitch them together. I ran off a copy of the size hexagons I wanted (you can find an explanation of paper-piecing and a link to printable hexagons here) and started cutting. After about the fifth hexie, I thought, "Ya know, I could just sew them together," and that was the end of the paper-piecing plan. It's really not hard at all to just sew the pieces, even though there's a set-in corner. That's one of the reasons I love hand piecing--I would never try to sew these on the machine. I'd go bonkers and probably end up sewing through my finger or something. Blood stains on the fabric are just too, too tacky.

I would do the paper thing if I were making really small hexagons. (Mine are finishing to about 7/8" on each straight side.) In fact, I'm doing another quilt using paper-piecing because the pieces are so teensy-weensy. I'll save that for another day.

Last chance to comment for the giveaway! I'll draw a name Friday, and the lovely merino-silk lace yarn will be on its way to a new home!

My New Favorite Video

Ok, maybe I'm a little late with this. Maybe everyone in the whole world except my great-grandma has seen this. (Yeah, so my great-grandma has been gone for a looooong time, but work with me here. And I don't mean "gone" as in "to the grocery store." You get me?)

Anyway. I find this cute, funny, charming, and a whole bunch of other adjectives. It's a masterpiece. (No, it's not Picasso or Monet. I don't mean that kind of masterpiece. Why do you have to be so difficult?)

Even if you've seen it already, my guess is that you can't resist watching it again. And again.

I have to get a video of my dog singing along with the guitar. Maybe it could be the next video to go viral!

Don't forget! Comment. Giveaway. You know what to do.