Vermont Leaves & Paper Piecing

We spent most of a week in Vermont where my parents-in-law have some lovely peaceful acreage we enjoyed wandering around on. I tried not to miss my sewing machine too much!

Our flights were from Seattle to JFK, then to Burlington.  Sheesh SEA>JFK can feel like a long flight.  I decided to go ahead and pretend to believe what everybody was saying - "It's fun to paper piece while you travel" Didn't buy it for a minute by the way...

I printed out a bunch of 1" hexagons from Texas Freckles, cut out what seemed to be an incredible amount of pieces of fabric, and packed them for flying with my little 1" blade scissors. I also grabbed an "embroidery in progress" and some fabric and pattern for another embroidery project.

Stowe, VT

 

By the end of the first flight, I had almost all the hexies basted and some of them already sewn together. Besides the difficulties of threading a needle in turbulence, I had an amazingly fun time with it.  I was distraught that it went so quickly!  While in Vermont I sewed my favorite of the bunch together and ended up with this. >>>

What I WANT to do is make a funky purse with it, but I am really torn - it could grow and grow and grow into something giant!

Farah Lin's quilt

<<< Something giant like this

At Handmade by FarahLin she made a hexagon quilt that awed me awhile back - now thats 1033 1.5" hexagons.  Do I know the math it would take to figure out how many 1" hexagons it would take? Thank GOODNESS no. Maybe I start a second bunch of hexies and make a the purse and a skirt instead? 

I also came away from the trip gifted with a good variety of Christmas fabrics from my Mother in law, most of which I hope to turn into gift wrapping sooner or later!

Almost Christmas already isn't it :(