A little Spring inspiration...

I was cleaning the hexie scraps off my coffee table this morning when this caught my eye:

Spring has been very slow to settle in around Chicago this year. We've been on a two-month roller coaster of high and low temps, accompanied by rain and gloom. These colors just popped against the Kona Snow, and of course got my imagination going on the color palette for yet another new quilt. They're pretty striking together, aren't they? And oh so happy on a damp, dark day.

And in pulling the above pic off my camera, I also found this one. I caught these tulips in bloom on a rare sunny(ish) day venturing out to my cousin's in the suburbs last week, where at this time of year it's 15-20 degrees warmer than it is near the lake. Those same vivid pinks and bright greens just pop.

I think it's a sign.

Uh-oh...

I wasn't feeling real great last weekend and the weather was pretty dismal. Spending a couple days on the sofa binge-watching the last season of "Downton Abbey" was pretty much all I was up for...except I hate just lying there, being totally unproductive.

Out of curiosity I'd bought some 3/4" hexie papers at the International Quilt Show a couple weeks ago (another post, and unfortunately my photos didn't turn out very well, so not much to show). I'd never done English Paper Piecing before and figured I'd try someday, and cutting and basting little scraps fit in very well with the weekend's planned event, which was, well, being a couch potato.

"Someday" doesn't usually come this quickly:  my first fabric purchase was in the closet for six years before I decided to attempt my first quilt!

So I pulled out my cache of solid scraps and went to town. I might rearrange some, add a few more flowers and I still have to finish all the border pieces, but I think it's pretty cute so far. It's destined for a friend with the perfect empty spot on her kitchen wall. She keeps bees (that lone yellow hexie is somehow going to become one, haven't thought that far ahead yet), so the hexagons are fitting.

It's laid out across my coffee table as it gradually gets pieced together. And covered with magazines every night so Archie isn't tempted to weigh in on an alternative arrangement.

Who knew hexies could be so addicting?