South American Hexies and a Plan

If it is OK with y'all, what I will do is to put together a post about each of the places we visited.  I will throw in some history of the area and the photos I took.  I have a busy week, so if I get any qilting stuff done, I can show tht to you as well.

But don't expect too much, my friend Paula had knee surgery this morning (with Dr. Gorgeous, I can't wait to see him again, need to find out when he will visit her and be there.....) and sister in law had breast cancer surgery while we were gone.


During the 3 weeks of travel, including the 10 hour plane rides to and from Houston and the hour plane ride to and from Baton Rouge AND the layover times to catch the ONE plane in and out of Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina, I got about 25 hexie flowers made.

I had prepared the templates and the fabric pre-flight since you cannot take sharp objects aboard the planes.  A large fingernail clippers served to cut the thread to sew things together.

The process included sewing the fabric to the template and then sewing 7 together in the flower shape.  It was a lot of work!


It kept me from going crazy on the flights and in the down times on the ship.  We had more days at sea than I generally like to have, so I got quite a bit of sewing done while we weren't playing cards.

I Have Been {somewhat} Busy

I made these 5 last night and tonight.  (Do you love my beautiful wood floor?  See how shiny and not scratched it is?  Not wood.  Ceramic.  Fools everyone.)

That makes 14 total so far.  I have no idea what they will end up as.  but I thought that if I was thinking about doing the Milleflori Quilt called Passacaglia, I would need to at least practice some on the now abandoned Hexie Project.  If you have not seen it yet, you need to go on Pinterest and see it in its magnificence.

Thinking.  Just thinking.

And I talked to the Modern Quilt Guild about a project for next year.  We agreed to do all the blocks in Tula Pink's 100 Modern Blocks book.







At the meeting we did a fun activity.  Pat, our VP, has the best activities!  He brought a ton of modern scraps and we did a Joseph Albers style design exercise.  After the fun, we all got to take home our designs.  I will post those fabulous things later this week. 

AND best of all, we got to take all his scraps as well.  I got a huge couple of handfuls of some really nice solids and some modern prints.  I decided to use them to make my 100 blocks.  So I cut out about 45 blocks.

At some point was itching to try out a couple of blocks.  So I reached in and grabbed a couple and just ran them up!  97 to go!


OMG!  They are addictive.

Chair Project, Hexies and the Dentist

I have been going to this dentist for a few years now.  I left the last one after he sold his practice to a guy who on the very first visit wanted to do a root canal on me.  Then did it on the wrong tooth and had to do another one on the tooth next to it. 

It seems that now one of the teeth this idiot did was not done properly.  He did not go all the way down to t he end of the tooth and close it off like is supposed to be done.  It has started to bother me off and on.

The visit today was my 6 month check up and they discovered this anomaly.  So now I need to go to an endodontist and discuss it with him.

And my dentist is now upselling.  The hygienist was pushing fluoride treatments and sealants.  Neither of which  my insurance covers if one is over 19.  And guess what?  I am.

Anyone have any experience with these "suggested" treatments.  I would appreciate your input.

 Here are my 9 completed hexie flowers.  They started out in the new bathroom by the cedar lamp and the Jim Shore Quilting Basset Ann gave Frank. 

They danced around and did a final Ta--Da in a long line and then got put away. 

And for my Fiber Group project, late as usual, I am making a chair.

I am loving this chair and want to make a ton of them.

And it stuck to my design wall with no pins!  LOL

Cucumber

The Cucumber plant I bought several weeks ago has yielded a nice cuke good enough to eat last night.  Frank went out to get it, and sliced that baby up before I could get photos.  (he does not have the appreciate of the art like I do.)

I am saddened by the loss of life in the Amtrak crash and the Nepal earthquake.

In better news, my purple FitBit says I have walked 4748 steps so far.  I did what I think everyone, except maybe for Frank, does when they first get the tracker.  I laid in bed and flapped my arms like wings to see if I could trick it to counting steps.  I couldn't.

But it counts the steps to the door to let one dog out, another in.  And 5 minutes later it counts the steps to let the out dog in and the in dog out.  Chloe just lays on the porch and watches the progression of Bad Basset Boyz past her.  If she had a tracker it would register 10.

I had dinner with Paula this weekend (she has a new granddaughter named Bridget born on Monday) and she showed me what I needed to do to put the hexies together into flowers.  Last night wanted to time how long it took to  make a flower from the hexies already on the papers.  I made one during NCIS and

another during NCIS: New Orleans.

So it takes just under an hour to assemble one flower.

 And I figured out why my camera was doing stupid dark photos.  I changed the setting somehow.  Those pesky ghosts are at it again.

Every once in a while they move my kitchen stuff.  And it will appear in another location after a month or so.  My rice disappeared a while back. 

We  have been in this house for 30 years now, and it happens all the time.  So it is not just me getting Alzheimers!  For the first three years we were here, the cabinet doors would open at random times when we were all sitting in the den.  My father would scoff at me and say it couldn't happen.  He changed the hinges one time he was here, but it continued to happen.  He couldn't explain it. 

Come to think of it, it slowed down about the time he died.  I guess he is protecting the house from the cabinet door spirits!  And the garbage disposal stopped shocking people who flipped the switch.  Well, OK, me......it never shocked anyone else but me.

 I wonder what my mother's job will be.  I guess she will go haunt Kenny.

Off The Wall at Nina Marie's!

I am linking this up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall posts.  Check out her space and see what wonderful stuff all the other people are doing this week.

I have had a difficult week working on getting my mother into hospice and visiting with Suzette from Texas.  So not much has been done.  But there are some interesting things that I have done.

Rust:

Several people have suggested that it looks like something from the Southwest.  Frank thinks it looks like something from Arches National Park.

He hiked to the first arch, but that was when I was jut beginning to have problems with my knee.  And I waited in the lot for him.  Not so much fun.

But it does look like the arches in the park.  So that is what it just might have to become!

I have been playing with hexies at night when we sit and watch our crime dramas.  NCIS, CSI and NCIS New Orleans.  Now I need to find someone who can take me to the next step and put them together.

I have put them together in bundles that will eventually be flowers of some sort.





I did not do my green foxes yet.  I have learned not to scoff at any color fox that might come out of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I have already laid out some fabrics that will become fox face!

I have big plans for them!

Monday Morning Apology - Nudes Bathing

I hate to start a week with an apology, but this one is amusing.

How many of you looked at the post about the Purple Cow and the fish duvet I scored?  Well, if you

were good friends and looked closely when I first put it up, you would have noticed a scandalous thing.

One of the shots included Frank drying off after his bath as we were getting ready to meet friends for dinner. 

Yep.  A nudie.  Don't worry,  I have already taken it  off.........

And, embarrassingly enough, I got a call from Carrie last night who had gotten a call from her mother-in-law.  So now the whole family and all of you out there has seen his cutey butt. 

All the while I was minding my own business making hexies!

 The middle stack is  the original stack, so Inow have nearly twice that done. 

And I just read that this one person has 1200 hexies in her quilt.  Probably larger than my hexies, which are 1 inch. 

Maybe I should make a hexie nude!

Lutrador, Hexies an Rust

Remember that house that burned down just before Christmas??  Well, they finally began tearing it down today.  At about 8 pm there was all kinds of comotion with police, ambulances and fire trucks.  Flashing lights, sirens, all sorts of people.  I have no idea what happened.  When we walked the dogs we saw an Entergy truck  there, so I am thinking the house was still electrified.  hope no one was hurt.

I am linking this post up to Nina Marie's Off the Wall post.  there are a lot of other talented people showing there as well!

I was a busy bee tonight and this afternoon. 


I painted up some Lutrador.  With some Rose Tsukineco Ink.

And hung it out to dry.







Pale color that will most likely lighten as it dries.   But  there is no limit to the number of coats!

 I made a small  stack of hexies!  I made a bunch of templates out o a couple sheets of cardstock.  Fran was nice and he punched out a hole in the center of each one while he watched TV.

 One is a cat

one is a pretty coral color 

 and one is purple and teal.

I found this fabulous saw at a resale shop for $5.  I thought I would give it to Frank as an old tool, but he wanted to de-rust it.

So I decided to keep it for myself!









And it is resting nicely, steeped in vinegar and wrapped in Ecology Cloth.

A much better future is planned for it!