Most of the listings are set up to be customized in some way or another. This was the reason I couldn’t do this on Instagram and had to open up my StoreEnvy shop again. It will help keep things organized a bit!

I’ve also added a few pre-made earrings, necklaces and a banner or two.

The sale will end Thursday, May 21st at midnight. At that point I will close up shop and start working on all the orders. I wont reopen the shop until the next sale. This way I can ship everything in a timely manner and still fulfill my contractual obligations I have.

All proceeds from this sale are going to help me take care of monthly payments on a long arm sewing machine, something I’m hoping to purchase very soon. The machine will help me turn out quilts faster, and allow me to experiment more with the actual quilting process. Then maybe after a year of practice, I can start taking on others quilts! It’s an exciting venture, and I just want to be ready. So expect a few of these flash sales within the next few months.

P.S.: You can get 15% off your entire order for being a blog reader! Just use code “BLOGLOVE” during checkout.

P.S.S.: Art School Dropout has an anniversary this month!!! So keep an eye out for a giveaway or two!!!

Well, I’m only about 1/14th of the way there! This is turning into my forever project. That project that you just keep working on until the day you die. Seriously though, If I keep going at this speed, I wont be finished for at least 5 years. YEARS! I’m ok with that though. Since it’s mostly made from my own scraps, with a few donated by friends, I will be able to look back at each hexagon and think of the project I made or the friend that gave me the fabric. It’s basically my quilting scrapbook! Maybe I should rename it?!?

I have been trying to keep this project under control by making 18″ blocks first and then piecing them all together in the end. As you can see above, I’ve finished one block and have three almost there. Each of the semi finished blocks is from a different level of the house or a different bag. I have project bags or boxes everywhere so I am never short of hexies to piece. That one on the bottom right for example, I pieced all of that in the airport this past weekend and a little on the plane. I did it in three sections to keep it manageable (and to not bring attention to myself) and then pieced the sections together at home.

This system really seems to be working for me.

Above you can see one of the storage systems I have been using. Nicole over at Modern Handcraft originally posted about these a few months back on InstaGram. They are Sterilite divided bins from Target and they can only be found in store. The little bins inside come out so you don’t have to have this huge bin on top of your table or wherever you are working. This seems to work best for me when I’m sitting on the couch actually. For any other situation I have little zipper pouches.

I’m leaving for ANOTHER trip very soon and I’m thinking a pouch or two will be stashed away in my backpack, just in case I have free time, because I would love to finish this faster. It’s going to look so neat!!!!!

Keep an eye out in the next few months for yet another update on this thing (hopefully), and in the meantime I have some other Hexagon projects in the works that I’m also excited to share with everyone!

The bag was made to hold all of my Hexagon Pins and I used In Color Orders lined drawstring bag tutorial. I actually use this pattern quite often as reusable gift bags, project bags or toy bags for friends and family. They go together super fast and are beyond cute. The fabric I used is by two of my absolute favorite artist. The top Lllama fabric is by Meg Hunt and I bought it YEARS ago from her when she was having a destash sale. It can now be purchased from her Spoonflower shop. The bottom fabric is by Lisa Congdon from her line The Land that Never Was. I figured if I made it out of my favorite fabrics, I’d probably use it more later.

The bag doesn’t hold all of the Hexagon pins, however it does hold enough for one day. That way I don’t give away all of my pins all at once!

So this lanyard wasn’t really a necessity, since QuiltCon does provide a lanyard with your badge, but why going the boring route?

I used Procrasticraft’s lanyard tutorial and a bunch of random scraps to put this together. I lengthened it by about 1″, purely because I didn’t want to cut off one of the designs. Fashion over function anyone?!? I spent maybe a total of 30 minutes putting this together and the outcome looks like it took way longer. Those are always my favorite type of projects.

Are you guys tired of hearing about QuiltCon yet? Well don’t worry, if everything went as planned I should be on a plane en route to Austin when this blog post goes live . So all that’s left to talk about would be a recap, I think…

There is this fun little tradition at QuiltCon I learned about, where people get 1″ buttons made with their name/business name/etc on them and they go around swapping with other people. They show them off on handmade lanyards or bags the whole trip. It’s a fun way of networking and helps break the ice when your meeting internet friends in real life for the first time. Absolutely brilliant!

I wanted to partake, and was about to go searching for my 1″ button machine, when the little light bulb over my head went off. Why not cast some pins? I had been trying to give myself some excuses to pour plastic again, because I really missed it. Perfect. I ordered some plastic and silicone and started making mock up designs. This was in early January.

I settled on a simple 1″ hexagon (because I REALLY love sewing hexagons) that I would just attach to my already designed business cards. I made a bunch of duplicate molds so I could cast a bunch of colors quickly. This was about the time that I also decided to make the quilty necklaces and soot sprites, because “why not? I already have the supplies”. If I had a quarter for every time I thought that…

I made around 200 of them, and will be bringing 150 with me to QuiltCon. The rest with be held on to for the shop and for myself. So if you’re not attending, keep an eye on this here blog for a shop update announcement.

I decided that it would be fun to make a little hashtag to go along with this project. So if you’re on Instagram or twitter, check out #askmeaboutmyhexies to see the process behind these pieces. Of course I had to go one step further and make myself a pin to go on my bags (shown above), and then one more step and start a contest…

For anyone going to QuiltCon who gets one of these pins: Take a photo of you, your bag, your pet, your friend or anyone else wearing one of these glittery hexies and tag me @jessee_artschooldropout with the hashtag #showmeyourglitterhexies for a chance to win a matching set of hexagon hairpins, necklace and ring! (I’ll have photos of the prize when I get home) I will take entries until the end of March, just to give everyone a chance.

I’m really hoping this helps me be more social. Sometimes I get super anxious around a lot of people, and I really want to make the most of my trip. So if you see me walking around, please come say hi and “Ask Me About My Hexies”, no need to have pins to swap, saying hello is enough!

So I thought it would be neat to just cross post some of my favorite photos every other week! If you’re on Instagram and would like to follow me, my username is: Jessee_ArtSchoolDropout !

I’ve been a huge mess lately preparing for BlytheCon (2 WEEKS LEFT TO PREP) and working on my Silhouette America projects so I can focus on that BlytheCon stuff, so I haven’t been able to play with all this fabric uninterrupted.

I did attempt to make a pretty, kinda chevron looking pillow out of the new 1Canoe2 line. Halfway through though I realized I had cut a bunch of pieces wrong and now I am reassembling what I can into pot holders. Luckily the line has food related items in it, which actually makes it PERFECT for potholders. Why didn’t I think of potholders before? I’ll share the finished set soon!

I also attacked the Chillingsworth charm packs and made a couple huge piles of hexies. They have already been pieced together and are just in the queue waiting to be quilted. (I like to do all my quilting at once. I may be a weirdo like that) Just like the potholders, I hope to share  the finished piece soon.

I also have BIG plans for those fat quarter bundles shown in the background of the first photo. I’m just not ready to share yet.

So, on a slightly different note, this post is just a sweet reminder of the changes I’ve made in how I spend my days! I can now sit down and sew, draw, bake and more without all the stress involved with what I was previously doing. I feel like I’m actually making progress in my goals I talked about last month and I have learned so much in that time too. I’m happier and a bit less stressed (I’ll be even more stress free after BlytheCon).

So I’d like to say thank you to everyone who encouraged me and has been supportive along the way.

You are all awesome!!!

I was so excited to get a hold of these little things, and I seriously cut right into them the second I got home. Well, after I made custom paper hexagons specifically to fit these with little waste. I used my Silhouette Portrait to do that btw.

I documented the entire process on Instagram, so I’ll be sharing some of those photos too.

Making the hexies themselves took no time at all. There were 120 2.5″ squares total (3 mini charm packs worth) and I can do about 35-40 a night. The part that took me the longest was whipstitching them all together. There wasn’t too much rhyme or reason to where I placed everything, I did make sure to keep similar pieces as far apart as I could, but thats it.

I know some people stitch their hexies on the bottom and don’t go through the paper, but I found that doesnt work for me and my slightly uncoordinated hands. I work much cleaner and faster when i baste through the paper. You can see me taking out the basting stitches and papers above. I always use neon pink thread because it allows me to see every stitch so i don’t miss any before quilting.

The above photo was just taken for fun! This was right after taking all of the paper out and steam pressing the entire thing. Isn’t it pretty?

I seriously could not decide how I wanted this thing quilted. I’m really only good at straight lines and tracing around objects right now, so to make sure I secured all the hexies and still had a pretty design in the end I went with the above combination. I used the edge of the hexies and the edge of my basic walking foot to line up all of the lines. It went pretty fast this way and I absolutely love the texture it added.

I squared off the edges, quilted a simple back piece using Robert Kaufman’s Essex Yarn Dyed in Denim, added an invisible zipper and stitched the entire thing together…

Tada, I have a finished pillow! One that has already been taken by my four year old as her own. She even gave me a hug and said thank you for making it for her. Ok, I guess it’s hers now.

I’m waiting on an invisible zipper for my other hexie pillow I’ve been working on. This one actually IS for my daughters room. I’ll post photo’s of that project soon enough.

Who knows though, I might start working on a 5th and 6th hexie project too! I may be a little obsessed…

In the meantime I started the project above. It’s a much smaller hexagon and enables me to use up the enormous amount of scraps I have accumulated over the years. Plus I can trade for more scraps because a lot of people hoard them too.

When I first started this project my plan was to just make a pillow, I nice 18″ square pillow. Though once I reached that size I just didn’t want to stop, plus I had a lot of hexies leftover. So I decided to keep going and make either a twin size quilt, or a 90″ square lap quilt. So just like the first hexie quilt, this will be a long term project and can only progress when I find more scraps or buy small amounts of fabric. Which I’m fine with.

The best part about the random nature of this quilt is any fabric goes. It can be super simple, super weird or just plain solid color. It all goes together!

I also love how I can be a little silly in where I place certain pieces too! I’ve been enjoying combining phrases with illustrations of people and animals. Like the examples above! I’ve been holding onto that “I’m With Stupid” fabric for many years and never knew what to do with it. I also have this awesome food truck fabric with a bunch of word bubbles that I use throughout.

I’ll need to make over 3,000 hexagons so I get loads of chances to mix this little easter eggs in.

Yet again though, since this is a long term project I still need to keep my hands busy while watching tv at night, which means there is a THIRD & FOURTH hexie project I will be sharing with you all soon. I just have to quilt them both, which means they are mostly DONE! (Yes, I am a crazy lady)

Have any of you started one of these projects because you saw my progress on here or on Instagram? If so, please share!!!