I asked a simple question

At least I thought it was a simple question

 You can see what I'm trying to do here can't you? 

Magic 4 squares.

I know there are charts, but I was lazy

And I can never find the one I keep by my sewing table

And I didn't have my tablet to look it up online 

(that it was less than 20 feet away on the couch, is beside the point. Shuush! I'm telling a story!)

So I asked my dear darling Husband, who was 5' away at the table finishing his morning coffee, if there was an easy formula to figure out.

how big a square I need to start with if I want 4- 2.5" halfsquare triangles out of it.

2 hours later, a demonstration of what I  wanted and why, how I got there and a discussion encompassing, Pythagorean theorem and the square root of two later.................>

 

I'll go look up the chart *sigh*

 

The other solution, that I remembered later (Its always AFTER isn't it?), that a 3"x 6" rectangle marked on the diagonal and sewed on either side and no major maths needed.

Note; I said EASY. 

You know, something the non mathemegical can understand and maybe even, throw in a calculator for the answer.

Aaaand now he is writing code to do the math for me, because he realizes I am not mathly. I dont have the heart to tell him I have a work around. This simple question has kept him busy for two days now. 

Who would I be if I squashed his fun now?  

This is why I love this Man.

A continuation as seen by the man himself

My philosophy on CQ

AKA "that's my story and I'm sticking to it" 

I started Cq sometime in the 90's, 

 

after ploughing through the many stages of sane quilting 

Piecing,  hand quilting, English paper piecing, applique, Baltimore album quilting, longarming

and exhausting my patience for X-stitch.

Which didn't take long.

 

 

It also gave me the excuse I needed, to take up any other hobby, my short attention span desired. 

It forced, FORCED I say!, to take up beading and ribbon folding.

 

 It has given my, already magpie like tendencies, to blossom into a full blown
dragon hoard.

 

 

and caused me many an hour of uninterrupted "Zen" time.

 

Slow stitching is my happy place.

 

When I pick up a needle, I can feel my heart rate slow and the bugs in my brain quiet.

 

Cross stitch is a wonderful space to play.

 

This is not to say I have quit any of the other hobbies.

No, no! 

A quick peruse of this blog will tell you that.

While this tends towards a bit of a schizophrenic existence

and piles of UFOs

 

 

 

I will never  run out of things to do.

More Jacobin

Back to my hole,

Oooh look! An artsy photo!

But It's a fun hole, full of embroidery technique to practices your skills on.

 

 

And now that it is back to gloomy I can prove that I actually went outside for a while

 with this lovely pinkish color I have picked up! 

 

 

Battlement couching, burden stitch, flyleaf and raised stem

 

 Why is it I never take photos of a thing 

till I'm halfway finished with it?

pictures are best in sunlight though.

 

Anyway having fun here so it don't matter

Progress!

 

 

 Lest you think this happens overnight 

I have been working on this thing since November.

So many stitches here from Padded buttonhole with bullion picots, to more battlement stitch, satin stitch, Flyleaf stitch, a crapton, (I  have it on good authority, that is a valid measurement!) of french knots.

I an determined to finish this someday........

Class Hexies

 I have just realized I have never shared my class hexies.

 As many of you may or may not know, I ran a crazy quilting and embroidery class at Gathering Fabrics Quilt shop in Woodinville  Washington, at least I did in the before times.

And if you didn't know already I like color.

The back

 

                                   Lots of it!

    I try to teach the intimidated to love their colors! 

     This is the little bit of CQ I use to demonstrate.

  Every Hexie is self contained and different

 

 

So here is a simple one of mostly pinks, 

which I tried to balance through out the block

Especially tamping down the impact of that bright saturated pink on the right, by making a lot of light blue strait stitch stars

And making a spray of pink vines in the lower quadrant and a big pink flower opposite

Here is another big balancing act

I used a lot of dark blue accents and spread them around to balance the dark blue patch on the right.

The flowers on the yellow patch are beaded

And the spray of leaves are silk ribbon on fly stitch

Here again, I balance the the patch 

By sewing a motif or seam opposite or tangential to the color of the main patches in the block 

Going in a clockwise direction around the block, to keep the eye moving around the block

 

So keeping the first few patches in mind 

 

I repeat this concept through out all the blocks on this quilt

 

 

 

I Teach out of Jennifer Clouston's Foolproof Crazy Quilting book

And I try to follow the patterns she shows in her book

So I can demonstrate them to my students in class 

 

I also tried to use as many readily available items on the quilts as possible to take the 

"It's too expensive" quotient out of it.

All the threads are DMC size 8 twist and the sequins are a plastic set I got at joannes

Many of the buttons are those from off coats or the extras you get with a new blouse

 

or plain ones I have in my stash

Which I glamour up with beads

Like the bug I made here in the upper green patch,

with layered buttons and beads to hold them together.

Notice also the plastic flower beads in the bottom patch, where no two are alike.

 

I have found you can do this when the pieces are of a like enough color, 

They don't have to be matchie-matchie to work together

It's also a good place to use a bunch of "Leftover" or extra beads.

 

As long as the beads are of like color or hue they all play nice together on the block

I have used a lot of my leftover bits and pieces on this quilt, 

To show you can make something beautiful no matter what you have to hand.

 

More button stacking and saturated color balancing here

 

The three big white buttons are of the same color and size but are different patterns to one another

 

The beads anchoring the big pearls at the bottom 

and the beaded butterflies at the top 

are from my "It fell on the floor" box and are all different

 

I have also used about 180 different fabrics 

230 beads, buttons, sequins, lace, 

                                  ribbon bits and doo-dahs

 And 30 different stitches in DMC and Silk ribbon embroidery

On this little quilt so far, I had been keeping a record

 but I lost track somewhere around the penguins.

I have a few more blocks, leftover from classes, that I haven't quite finished yet.

I was hoping to get back to them but got sidetracked by the plague.