Benefit for Eric Hawley

One of the great benefits for those of us that sew is being able to 'whip' up something for a charitable thing when needed. Well I don't actually 'whip' up anything anymore, but I have enjoyed making a project to benefit Eric Hawley a husband of a friend of mine who was in a very serious car accident about 2 months ago followed immediately by a stroke. So not only did he have to recuperate from the accident injuries but the stroke ones. I think he spent something on the order of a month or more in the hospital. With three young children at home, a full time job, his wife Bailey was going in all directions. At this point he is home and continuing to heal but the bills remain. His friends and family are throwing a benefit for him to help raise money to help pay off the bills and all that out of pocket stuff like parking, extra gas to go back and forth to the hospital etc. If you live in Northwestern PA, you are more than welcome to attend the benefit, here is the link from Facebook for the details https://www.facebook.com/events/1417878755141713/

I wanted to contribute to help and since I'm not up to attending or cooking anymore, I made something for the auction they will have. It gave me a chance to do something for someone else and fine tune some new sewing skills that I have been working on, especially making and using hexagons. I made a butcher's style apron with coordinating potholders. On the potholders, I tried echo quilting for the first time and it was a bit tricky with all the angles and when appliqueing the flowers down I had deliberately set them at angle and only decided later to do the echo quilting. Bear with me as the photos are my first attempt at using the digital camera. If you like what you see here, go to the benefit and see if you can win them :)

 

My favorite apron pattern design McCall's 5174 (out of print) . Easy to make so you have time to embellish. Being modeled by Annabelle.

 

The pocket started out as a large hexagon . Sewed the two layers together, turned them inside out, folded the flap down and then appliqued it to the apron with an applique stitch (#45 on the Janome 7700)

 

Hexagon flowers and a hexagon flower bud with a rick rack stems. I didn't have the right color of rick rack, so tried to tone it down with more thread, but I'm not sure it worked very well.

 

Hexagon flower potholders with echo quilting. Flowers and binding is sewn down with an applique stitch (#45 on Janome 7700) They are about 8" square. My own design, no pattern.

 Quick and Easy Hexie Quilts is one of the books I have been using as reference in my quest to lean how to make and use hexagons.