more of hexy thoughts

These are the low low tech way of laying things out and then poorly photographed with my cell phone.  mostly cause my computer is cranking away running ground water models and there isn't much you can do while it computes and seriously it can be mind numbing watching the model run.  I guess it comes down to do I want a square quilt or a hexagonal quilt.  I played with the fabric last night and basically decided a modified hexagon park is pattern I am going to go with for this quilt, with black sashing.  I think there will be cutting on the project tonnight

quilt planning and inspiration

http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2011/06/header-vignettes.html  truley lovely pictures.  I particually like the sea horses and the frogs.  I love the sturgeon one but then again I am a fish geek and sturgeons are just really cool fish.  The are living relics in one of the oldest families of ray fined fishes.  Caviar is from several species of the European species of sturgeon. These are enormous fish when the reach full size.

the hexagon quilt thinking
I am debating between Hexagon park or Sexy hexy love.  either way the hexagons will be big enough to incorporate the large print of the fabric I am using.
The fabric i will use http://lizzyhouse.typepad.com/lizzyhouse/2009/11/castle-peeps-reveal.html http://www.aboveallfabric.com/collection/1001-peeps.html and maybe some of this http://tulapink.com/2011/04/25/prince-charming/.
This will lead to a setters of catan/ civilization ish theme for the quilt

If I do the hexagon park, instead of white I am debating black or chocolate brown or an espresso brown.  I like the dark lines better since the fabric is bright and I think it will make the fabric pop.   Hexagon Park uses 30 hexys and finishs out at 70x80.  I have 18 fabrics for the castle peeps and 24 for the 1001 peeps

and that is 40 fabrics though I don't have to use them all. if I used the coral and indigo prince charming fabrics that is another 15 fabrics.  so options are 1) make it with one hexy of each fabric and just let it be a larger quilt.  2) make the hexys smaller 3) ditch the border and just have the jagged hexy edge and while the binding is more complicated it could be interesting that way. I am leaning towards combinations of 1 and 3.  while I don't want another king sized quilt.  as I finished one this year and am half way through the second,  the  8 inch hexys really show off the fabric nicely  by working with the repeat of the fabric the best.  5 inch hexys will also work with the repeat but not as well for all of the fabrics. larger blocks = less sewing for the same sized quilt.  but in this case larger blocks=larger quilt. so the larger blocks = less sewing is probably a logical fallacy on my part but half of getting a large quilt done is perseverance so having it feel like less sewing is probably beneficial.  Then the 3 question is do I group my colors in to kingdoms or mix and match.  with the catan/civ theme for this quilt having the colors grouped by kingdom could be interesting.

Sexy Hexy Love Musings

This could work with either the town buildings or the peeps in the center of each hexys with the castles and the heraldry around each center. I would modify this pattern basically using her patterns for the hexagon block and then make 18 blocks and and make a hexagon shaped large lap quilt.  there will also have to be some shrinking of each of the blocks so the quilt doesn't end up gigantic.

this quilt idea has been marinating in my brain for about 6 weeks now.  I am finally getting ready to start it even though there are still lots of questions in my head.

To paper piece or to not paper piece

I have had a hexagon quilt idea in my head for a while now.  I am going to use Lizzy House's Castle peeps and 1001 peeps and make a Civilization inspired quilt.  geeky I know. so I have been waiting for the 1001 peeps to come out.  I got my self a hexagon ruler yesterday.  to cut out lots and lots of hexagons.  for this quilt to really work I need big hexagons.  I thought about using Amy Butlers Sexy Hexy Love pattern, but the 8 inch finished blocks are a weird size when I look at them on the castle peeps fabric.  The ruler I got makes 5 inch finished blows if I go with using it to cut out the fabric.  the other option I have been thinking about is using it to for a freezer paper template and english paper piecing and then I could make the block half an inch bigger.  Both the 5 and the 5.5 inch finished blocks look better than the 8inch blocks with this fabric.  So I guess the question comes down to do I want to hand sew the top or machine sew it.  I can make the two compatible sizes.  I have a little bit of time to make a decision as I have to finish one of the quilt tops currently on the table before I can start a new project.  With the wallow fire as bad as it is in Arizona  we are still saturated in smoke.  The bebegirls is spending another week with her grandparents cause really why expose her to the smoke unnecessarily.    it means I have an extra week to get more quilting done.

when we have a smoke free day and I am not at work  I will take the finished yellow fairy quilt out side to photograph.  it is really stunning.  I did finish a shawl this week. and I will leave you with a picture of it.

Desperate Plea for Rain

These are pictures are totally unimpressive until you realize that there should be large mountains off in the distance (sorry about the windshield gook).  The mountains should fill the image, dominate the skyline, not be what mountains?!?!? I don't know what you are talking about, there are no mountains here.  The north crest of the Sandia Mountains is about 8.5 miles  as the crow flies from where I took these photos.  We are saturated in smoke from the Wallow wildfire in Arizona.  So much smoke in the air.   As of mid day today more than 311,481 acres have been burned with zero percent containment. 

http://blogs.sacbee.com/photos/2011/06/wallow-fire-still-zero-percent.html

So every one out there with too much rain please please sent it our way.

Update

A year ago almost exactally, DH, bebegirls and I went on vacation for 4 days.  When we got home we discovered there was a power outage while we were gone causing all the pumps in my reef tank to turn off and mass amounts of death in the tank.  Do you know how bad an 18inch anemone smells when it dies.  When the nitrates dropped below 20ppm I started adding critters to the tank again.    At Christmas I added some frog spawn corals and recently I added a $10 sized zooanthid colony to the tank.    I took this photo first thing in the morning before the lights turn on, so the colony is still waking up but you can see the zooanthids spitting and growing.  I should be braver and put more stuff in the tank and it might recover faster. but the spreading of the zooanthids is a good sign.

Bebegirls is off in with her Grandparents for two weeks.  She is having a great time.  Here are some pictures I took last week when we dropped her off.

MMMM tomatos fresh of the vine

The Dog isn't sure about always being held.

Two weeks of Bebe free time have lead to lots of quilting time.  I have three different tops I am working on. atm.  I have made alot of progress.  I might have one of the 3 tops pieced by the time she comes back.  One of the tops is a king sized quilt so I work on the other two when I need a break.  The smaller of the two will be a 50x 40ish lap quilt  and the larger will be an 80x80 quilt for my nephew for when he gets his big boy bed.  The twins turned 1 a month ago but as he never got his baby quilt I figured I might as well make his useful.  I didn't take a picture of the large stacks of fabrics of the works in progress.

attack of the giant jelly fish...

I mean yarn monster

DH failed to follow directions today.  I said please only run the dryer.  don't touch the wash machine I have some skeins of yarn soaking in there.  instead he went oh the wash is full of water with no clothes in it and then put clothes in there on top of the soaking yarn and then ran the wash machine. and this tangled mass is what came out