Leather & Hexagons

This evening I tried doing some free motion...not quilting, but stitching?  Anyway, I tried it on leather.  I was just curious if it could be done.  Wait, scratch that...I was pretty sure it could be done.  I was curious to see if it could be done by me on my little domestic sewing machine.

I tried it on my Singer 115, which is in a treadle base.  I use the 115 for free motion work, and I kind of have it in my head that the 115 is "dainty"...maybe because I only do fancy free motion quilting on it.  But the truth is, the 115 is just as overbuilt as the rest of my antique machines, and free motion quilting is hard on a machine.  The 115 was able to handle this without a problem.

Full disclosure: I stitched this with an inappropriate needle (a quilting needle, not a heavy leather needle) and inappropriate thread (just regular poly sewing thread, not heavy thread) so that may have impacted the results.

First I stitched two hearts.  The one on the right was my first attempt...as you can see, I lost track of my thread on the left curve of the heart.  The heart on the left turned out better.

I also made a daisy.

After that I practiced a few more seams.  I suppose that the next step for me will be to find a leather project to do, and practice some of the techniques used in that project.  What is the most basic, easiest project someone can sew with leather?

Last weekend was my local Modern Quilt Guild sew day, and I made a few log cabin quilt blocks.  I also nearly finished the hexagons I need for my husband's quilt.

I don't need a ton of hexagons...they're just going to be in a line down one side of the quilt.   I need to make three purple ones, and then I'm done!  I need to get some background fabric.

Blah

Lately I just haven't been able to get into a sewing mood.  Maybe it's because I do most of my sewing after my kids are asleep, and lately I've been feeling so sick and tired that I just fall asleep as soon as the kids do.  I don't know.  But I've lost my sewing mojo lately.

At least the Christmas preparations have been going in my favor. My mom found a Christmas gift that she absolutely loved, so she already bought it and informed my brother, sister, and I that we could pay my dad and that would be our Christmas gift to her.  She also found a gift for my dad that my siblings and I could chip in on, so those are two gifts down.

Unfortunately I've had two setbacks.  My nephew's crib quilt tore apart in the wash (I'm still puzzling out how that happened - it's not like I washed it with razors) and will be in need of repair.  I'm going to ask the good people of Threadbias about the best way to approach that one. Also, today I went to find more gray fabric, which was the background fabric for my mom's quilt top (I'm still going to give it to her, maybe for Mother's Day) and found that the fabric I used is gone!  It's so hard to find gray solid fabric.  I'm going to bring back a piece of what I bought and see if I can buy a couple more yards...maybe the fabric was just on order or behind the cutting counter while I was there.  But I'm reluctant to make more HSTs unless I know I have enough gray to complete the whole thing.  Ugh.

In the meantime I'm going to start something new.  I bought some fat quarters and I'm going to make a hexagon quilt.  I found a website where you can print out hexagons of any size, and another site that teaches you how to draw your own perfect hexagons with a compass.  I just did the print site.  Hopefully I can make a rainbow of hexagons and that will get me back in the mood to sew.  Part of me feels like I should work on my son's teacher's mug rug, but really, that will take no time at all.  Why force it?

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.