Hand sewing anyone?

We are about to go overseas for eight weeks, so I thought I'd better order some fabric.  Yes, I am serious.  I know my mother wants a quilt and am sure my mother in law would like one too, so I decided to make lap sizes quilts for them.

Two months is a good chunk of time, so I ordered the fabric with a view to making a Dresden plate lap quilt.  I bought half yards of 33 different small print fabrics and started to cut out the blades.  I only ended using thirty as one was flannel (my mistake) and the other two didn't fit in.

I thought I'd take the Dresdens with me and hand stitch them on while away.

Pretty :)

 

Once I had cut them out, sewn the tops and pressed, they came together much faster than I though they would.

Now that I've completed all six 18 inch plates, I've decided to machine appliqué them, rather than lugging it all to the other side of the world.  I'll do that when I get back.

So, what to do in the quiet times while I'm away?

Make a hexagon lap quilt of course, with some of the same fabrics.  Maybe a grandmother's garden quilt.  I've ordered 400 1 inch hexagon paper.  After I submitted and paid for the order, I changed my mind and ordered freezer paper from a company in Australia that sells American products.  I had to order 4 rolls, so that ended up costing a bit.  The iPad let's you be compulsive at great cost.  I ordered the freezer paper so I could spend more buying the inklingo 1 inch template to print directly on the fabric.  Have you used inklingo?  Any reviews you would like to share before I spend $25 on a digital drawing of hexagons?

The horrid carpet under our house is the background for these photos. I think I'll use a pale lemon or a jacaranda flower coloured sheet for the background blocks.