Hexed happiness!

Yesterday I showed you two hexagon blocks I had picked out from Jan Halgrimson's book Patching Things Up - Spinning star and Pinwheel!


After some positive comments I felt encouraged to have a go at making the Pinwheel block.  Thank you girls you do motivate me tremendously!


I have to say it was not without some diffficulty that I produced this block....
I had a go at using some templates I already had but when I drew them out on paper I realised they would not produce the correct size of block for my quilt. 


Like the story of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears this block was a bit too big.....

My next effort - I thought I had worked out the size it should be, but it turned out a little too small....

Never mind I have added a border and it will do for now.  Here is the group shot!

I will have to get serious about drafting this pattern properly and get me some of that hexy graph paper - it will be like going back to school, graph paper, compass, ruler and pencils and don't forget the eraser, I'm bound to need that!


No easy or lazy way out that I can see - just maths!




I also made three more of the bright Kaleidoscope Hexagon blocks by machine (so quick after piecing all the others by hand) and added all 49 blocks together to make seven rows of seven blocks as you can see here....

My next job is to zigzag from point to point of these blocks so I can join up the rows and complete this quilt top!  Yeah!  Saffy seems to like it!  But what should I do about those centre circles?


The options


1  All one colour throughout the quilt - more cohesion through quilt but may dominate
2  A fabric from each individual hexagon - continues scrappiness but each hexagon will read as one piece
3  A contrast fabric from the quilt but not in that specific hexagon  - more scrappiness but could draw different hexagons together


Ooh choices!  Any advice?

Hexing Along....

I have three hexy projects on the go at the moment.

Furthest along is the Kaleidoscope Hexagon quilt, which I am still quilting but there is not much left to do.  I think if I quilt it in the evenings I may even finish it soon...

Second is the Hexalong.  Lynne keeps posting lovely blocks for us to try but I  have not got down to actually doing them......yet!  I think this weekend may be the time to catch up.


I am also wanting to delve deeper into Marti Michell's book Six is for Hexagons and I have found some other hexy blocks in my second hand books by Jan Halgrimson.     I will have to redraft these to make them the right size for this project however and that should test out my skills...


Here are a couple I would like to try...

For now, here are the new blocks I have done...

And all together so far...

My third project is the bright Kaleidoscope Hexagon quilt!  I have 46 blocks as two have gone into the hexalong quilt.  But with what I have left I thought I could make a nice comfy lap quilt and an easy finish using the machine to sew these blocks by Gayle Brindley's point to point method.  




This is my progress so far.  Not much I know but I should get all blocks in rows soon and then I will have the trickier bit of sewing rows together....

I have some spare tumblers in a drawer somewhere so when I have sewn these blocks together it will not take much time to make the 3 more I need to make a 7x7  block quilt.  Then I will have 49 centre circles to sew on as I haven't decided whether it should be all one fabric or different ones??


It would be good to get this extra UFO top finished.

Garden Borders of the Friendship variety...

I have at last found time to cut up the fabric for my applique border background - a bit boring I know - just marbled cream fabric but it is what goes on it that is the interesting bit I hope.  I have run out of the cream with gold dot which I used  for the squares but hope it will not be too obvious - or I will just have to do some French knots or something!


I have sewn the borders onto the quilt as per instructions so this will not be a take along project but I guess it needs to be attached to get accurate placement.  This is a BIG quilt and I haven't even layered it up yet!  The other third is on the other side of the banister!

I have pinned on the green swags and stars on one side to get an idea of how it will look. 

The next thing is to baste down those pieces so I can stitch away without pins!  


Wish me luck with my re-acquaintance with applique! 






And just because she is beautiful......and keeps me company when I am sewing...here is miss Saffy!

Farmer's Wife 32

Here are my new Farmer's Wife blocks - sorry cannot keep to two per week!  I seem to want to do them in big batches and then take a break.  When I get started I just want to keep going until something else takes over.


No 48 Homeward Bound

No 55 Linoleum

No 56 Maple Leaf

No 68 Postage Stamp

No 69 Practical Orchard

No 108 Windmill

No 109 Windows

No 111 Wrench

Here are my blocks all together in a mosaic - what's the quick way to make one of these as I seem to have spent ages on this one??

Also trying out a possible sashing colour for my blocks - I think it is Kona Hibiscus - one of my favourites!

So now I will let you catch up a bit but I will not be putting my feet up yet just other things are calling me and Liz I am going back to applique soon...

Time travel!

Yesterday I got very little sewing done!  Are you shocked?  I don't sew well in a car even when I'm not driving!  


And we went on a trip to Greenwich....My eldest is interested in physics and astronomy so we had promised to take her to the Royal Observatory.  Historically this is an important place as it is where we eventually managed to measure travel around the globe east to west before GPS that is  - the invention of longitude, which would have been impossible without the invention of a clock that was accurate out at sea!

The courtyard at the Observatory has a line going through it and everyone wants their photo taken with one foot either side as this is the Greenwich Mean Time line, the Prime Meridian, 0 degrees longitude!  One foot in the West, the other in the East!

We saw a great show at the planetarium led by a doctor of Astronomy.  It showed us the sky as it was yesterday evening which is just as well as it was too cloudy to see for real.  But be on the lookout for Jupiter in future as it has just come into view for us in the Northern Hemisphere!  Saturn has gone south...!  

She gave us a view of our solar system from outside our galaxy the Milky Way and ended up giving us a brief look at the sky at night from Australia!  With a better view of the Milky Way than we get in the UK or US! 

Well you would think that was exciting enough but before we climbed the steep hill up to the observatory around the grand buildings of the Royal Naval College there was a bit of a commotion. 

A film crew from the BBC were much in evidence filming a period drama...

This is how you change a modern street into a Victorian one - a bit of tarpaulin and dirt!

Here are some of the cast getting instruction

Can you see the man with the pegleg?  And this dapper young gent posed for the photo - is he playing a major part?

And is this less salubrious chap capturing my daughter? Or making her laugh?

Well you are possibly wondering which drama was being filmed?  As it is from the BBC you could have 'great expectations' of a quality production - need I say more?


This was time travel indeed....

Plaid String-along! going strong...

I have been beavering away in the background with my string plaid blocks lagging behind the very quick Juliekquilts - she has probably completely finished her quilt by now.


Here is my first block  

 I then went onto make five more blocks along the same lines.  So far so good!  On my list of things to buy at the FoQ was some pale yellow for my sashing.  I did find some

But I also found that yellow and grey fabric... and so looking again at my plaid string blocks I decided I didn't like the cornerstones fabric I had sewn into six blocks in this quilt.  So while watching a film I unpicked all six cornerstones and have been putting the yellow and grey fabric in instead!  Grrr!




At this point I just needed six more quarter blocks to finish.  How could I resist the challenge?  I find the fairly mindless activity of string piecing quite therapeutic as I listen to some radio book on my laptop, cup of tea by my side and cat asleep on the bed!


So this centre section of the top is finished!  Yeah!  

Here is the back of the quilt - you can see I am using telephone directory papers as my foundation!  Wonder if the children or cats will help me when it comes to removing those?  I have removed them from one block but found that one so stretchy that I left the others in.  

When is the best time to take them out?   I was going with idea of taking them out when everything is sashed round all the edges so a narrow grey sashing might be my next move.

But what shall I do for borders???  The original quilt had a piano key border followed by a repeat of the sashing.  


I think I need to consult my latest second hand book as recommended by no less than the lovely Lynne from Lily's Quilts:  Pieced Borders, the complete resource by Judy Martin and Marsha McCloskey! 

 Unless you have any suggestions....?

Post for Susan Canadian Abroad!

Susan was wondering in my comment box recently how I was going to use this gorgeous fabric in my hexalong quilt

The fabric is designed by Kaffe Fassett and I think Susan pointed it out to me so I duly bought it at the Cotton Patch stand at FoQ.


The flowers were not quite big enough or far apart enough to be a simple block on it's own

or I would have had to sacrifice too many others and I like my fabric to go as far as it can so what could I do?






Look in Marti Michell's Six is for Hexagons book of course and seek inspiration - this is what Marti and I came up with...

Hope you like it Susan!?   Have to say this one is very bright using one of the solids I bought for my little house blocks...might need to tone it down a little in future.