Rockin Robin

Yesterday someone posted a link of my Facebook page to a project where someone sewed little stuffed birds to use in a mobile.  You can see the adorableness here.

Too cute, right?  I had to try.  My bird didn't turn out quite as well as theirs, but considering that I don't sew three-dimensional things and don't sew by hand very often, I think it was a good first attempt.

Hello, bluebird!

They offer the PDF pattern for free here if you want to sew up some birds of your own. It was really quick, although I did cheat and use my machine to sew up half of it.  However, I might cut out a bunch of pattern pieces and bring it as a hand sewing project to my quilt guild's next sewing days in the summer.  I love bringing my Singer 66 hand crank to sew on, but I'm almost into my seventh month of pregnancy and that thing is HEAVY.  I can only lug it around for so long. 

Addictive little hexagons

I had pretty much vowed not to start any more projects until my holiday sewing was done.  However, my grandfather passed away about a week ago, and last Tuesday I spent a significant amount of time at my mom's house, watching her newborn puppies while she and my dad wrapped things up at my grandfather's funeral.  I didn't want to bring my hand crank machine along because my back has been acting up (its weight is the only thing that makes me occasionally consider getting an electric sewing machine), and I was afraid to use my mom's sewing machine for fear that it would bother the puppies (however, their ears are closed, so they wouldn't have been able to hear anyway).  So I decided to try English paper piecing by sewing some hexagons.

I hate hand sewing so I figured I'd hate making hexagons.  However, I love the look of hexagons and wanted to see how much of a pain they were to make.  I printed off this template and looked at a few tutorials.  This video was the most helpful for me.  Then I tried it.

Hexagons!

Those little things are like potato chips - you can't have just one.  I made a whole bunch that day, and have made more since.  There's something so satisfying about ending up with that perfect little hexagon.

I think I'm going to make a bunch and applique them to a quilt...just a long line of hexagons down one side of the quilt.  I don't have the patience to make a whole quilt that way, and I don't really care for the hexagon flowers.  I love these little things, though.

I'm definitely motivated to get moving on my holiday sewing so I can spend my winter break making a whole pile of little hexagons.