Hearts and hexagons

Wowza! Two weeks just flew by. I know I let my blog slip when I’m busy, but I think this takes the cake. Although life has been getting in the way, I have been doing some crafting.

I swapped the two hearts I showed in the last post for these two amazing hearts. This one is from Lori in Connecticut,

and this heart is from Margreet in the Netherlands.

I really enjoyed both of these swaps and I can’t wait to finish some more hearts to swap (soon, very soon).

I also found out that I’ll be teaching a workshop for my local quilt guild. It’s going to be an English paper piecing class so I’ve been busy making samples. Since the class is going to be only 3 hours the project will be to make a coaster or a gift pouch (which will hopefully be finished in 3 hours). The inspiration came from two books: The Impatient Patchworker by Jayne Emerson, which has the coaster pattern I modified, and Kokoro No Te by Kumiko Sudo. Her book has all sorts of great gift bags you can make. I’ve adapted the coaster pattern so that you make a pouch, which could hold gift cards etc. (I’ve always hated just putting gift cards into a regular card).

I’ve been really intrigued by monochromatic projects and so I’ve been playing with this in my samples. Here’s a finished pouch.


And here are two more unfinished samples.

One I’ll make into a coaster and the other will be a different variation on the pouch (I’m still experimenting). I’m glad I started this early. There’s still a bunch of stuff I want to do for the class including writing instructions and finding books that have examples of English paper piecing – thank goodness the workshop is in February.