WIP Wednesday: 4th of July edition

Jul 4

Written By

Hi everyone! I'm so excited to be helping Lee out on her summer vacation, and guest hosting this holiday edition of WIP Wednesday today {insert pretty fireworks here}. My name is Jess and I blog over at SewCraftyJess. In real life, I live outside of Pittsburgh, PA with my hubby of almost 4 years and our two bad adorable and spoiled furbabies, Zoey and Bella. By day I work as an audiologist, but in the evenings, I try to squeeze in a little sewing every day.

First of all, to those in the US, Happy 4th of July! Hopefully you will get some time to enjoy a cook out or two (or three in our case...) and some pretty fireworks. I know it's sort of odd when holidays like this fall in the middle of the week—we did our celebrating last weekend (and a little next weekend too), so today's sort of a free day. :-)

As for what's been going on in my sewing room, between working on my tan and seeking relief from the recent 90+ temperatures at the pool, I haven't been overly productive sewing-wise, but I have managed one finish and some bee blocks, and have a few projects in the works.

Completed Projects

X Marks the Spot baby quilt

My lone finish of the week was this baby quilt for a cousin who recently had a baby. You can read more about it here, and find the block tutorial here.

New Projects

Flying Geese baby quilt

A dear friend of mine just found out she is having a baby girl, and I couldn't resist pulling fabrics from my stash to make a sweet baby girl quilt. I knew I wanted lots of pinks, and pulled out a few sherbert-y oranges, muted aquas and light greys to pair with Essex Linen in Sand that I recently purchased from Pink Castle Fabrics.

I made quick work of turning that stack of fabrics into a slew of flying geese units, and used this nifty trick to simultaneously make a bunch of half square triangles, that would make some adorable matching pillows.

June Bee Blocks

for Amanda-do. Good Stitches Imagine circle- June

I spent a little time working on bee blocks for both the Imagine Circle of do. Good Stitches and the Stash Bee. I love both of these color combinations, but that improv style of block based off this tutorial from Six White Horses sort of scared the bejeesus out of me. You can read more about these blocks here, and see my method of paper piecing that "improv" block for a much less scary experience.

In Progress

EPP Hexagons

Since I don't spend nearly as much time down in my sewing room once the weather gets nice, I wanted to start a project that would be portable and I could work on on the go. Enter English Paper Piecing. I typically am not a patient sewist—I like to start a project to quickly see it finished. This is certainly not the case here, but I am enjoying taking my good old time piecing these hexies by hand.

I'm hoping these little hexies do a little scrap busting, as my bins seem to be bursting at the seams. I have about 20 flowers completed, with about a bajillion more to go, so I suppose this will be a lesson in patience if nothing else. :-)