Tag: Storybook Hexagon Quilt

My kids are punks

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I’ve been working away on the Rainbow Coin Strip quilt, spurred on by the, frankly, heartwarming reception my kids have been giving it whenever they wander through the craft room. Everyone loves to look for fabrics they remember, and oh my goodness, have I been feeling like a Winner.

I finally got all the borders attached and laid out the quilt on a bed so it wouldn’t wrinkle while I prepared the backing. I mentioned to Emms that the quilt was pieced in its entirety and laid out on the bed if they wanted to see it in its full glory, and they headed off to the room. Moments later they shrieked and then started laughing, which piqued my curiosity and Nathaniel’s, so I went into the room after he ran in and saw this:

So I walked around the end of the bed to see what was so interesting, and saw it:

And those little punks squealed with glee, took pictures of it, and texted it to their friends for a laugh.

And you know how people say, “Will it matter in ten years?” I decided that yes, it would still matter in ten years and they would probably still be making fun of me, so I decided to fix it:

I don’t think it will matter much, jokes about snipers and presidential assassinations are going pretty strong in our house at the moment.

And it’s no longer the “Rainbow Coin Strip quilt” to my kids, it’s now called the “Kennedy Sniper quilt.” Which is not a name you want people to adopt for anything you make, ever.

Seriously, who OK’d the decision to put that on fabric?!?! Why?!?! What quilt would be elevated with that headline?!?!

I imagine it was one of the fat quarters included in a low volume or text only bundle, and when I was cutting fabric for the border I just grabbed white fabrics with black on them, no reading necessary, stacked them in a pile and did a batch cut. And then I sewed them together, right sides facing, so I missed it again. Ugh.

Oh well, the hexagons are cute, and it allowed me to use up a little bit of canvas that’s been sitting in the stash since I made the original Storybook Hexagons quilt with it. It was nice to revisit memories of that quilt, which is still to this day the most popular quilt on this blog.

And now that adorable fabric is covering up a presidential assassination headline. Lovely.

The Storybook Hexagon Quilt is Finished!

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This quilt serves as a caution against mindlessly window shopping at online fabric sites.  I had no plans to make this quilt, but as I was clicking through SuperBuzzy’s website during Christmas break, I spotted a fabric…and in a glorious instant I saw this quilt in my mind’s eye.  I quickly closed my web browser and ran away from temptation, telling myself that I had no time for making a quilt like that because I was committed to two other quilts for my children already, both seriously overdue.

But the fabric wouldn’t leave my brain.  I stewed about the idea for two whole weeks, all the while reminding myself that I did not have the time to add another quilt to my to-do list.

But then my heart got involved and started pleading with my brain to reconsider.  It was going to be a beautiful quilt, and it would be like creating art, and if I didn’t give my heart what it wanted, it refused to care about anything else.

Sigh…

Alright.

There are three different fabrics used for the fussy cut hexagons, all of which are from Superbuzzy.  The music-themed one is Trèfle by Kokka, and then there’s a November Books print by Kokka, and a folksy print by Cosmo Textile Company.  My selvages are pretty sliced up on the last two, or I’d give you more information.

Everything else, besides the solid blue, came from the stash.  I think the gray polka dot on the back is a Riley Blake print, and the roses print is years upon years old.  (I’m tremendously helpful, aren’t I?)

The quilting is a mix between free motion and walking foot.  I stippled the string blocks, outline quilted the hexagons, straight-line quilted the white stripes, and then did FMQ scallops around the white stripes and borders of the quilt, with some feather hearts in the corners.

I’m super happy with it.  I still stand by the opinion that I did not have the time to make this, but it’s OK in the end.  Sometimes you just have to give your heart what it wants, despite logic and logistics.  My heart is pleased.

Pattern:  “Cat Tails Quilts” from Hexa Go-Go by Tacha Bruecher.

January = Cutting and basting hexagons
February = Piecing hexagon blossoms
March = Piecing string blocks, appliqueing hexagon blossoms to string blocks
April = Assembling quilt top and back (I could have gone faster on this, but I burned out a bit at this point.)
May = Quilting & binding

And that’s how you make a fussy, fussy, my-heart-won’t-settle-for-anything-else quilt.

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Storybook Hexagon–Final stage!

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I’m going with a red polka dot binding.  It’s stitched on the front, and right now I’m pressing and pinning for its second stitching.  I’m leaning towards machine stitching the second time, rather than my usual hand stitching. I’ve not done that before, but I keep telling myself that it’s not cheating and that it will look just as good done by machine.

I think I might go back in and add another row of quilted scallops in the border.  Too much unquilted space for my liking.

I’m not a big fan of being tied to my sewing machine when the weather is nice, so this part is taking forever because I keep avoiding it so I can go outside instead.  Perhaps hand binding is in my future?  Hee hee.

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Quilting the Storybook Hexagon Quilt

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I know, I’m throwing a different project at you each week!  I kept busy over the winter with a couple of things, and this little beauty is one of them.  I started piecing the hexagons in January, after I came across the ridiculously cute fabrics and couldn’t resist the idea of making something with them.

The hexagon blocks are interspersed with string-pieced blocks, and it’s really just so pretty that I waste a good five to fifteen minutes each day just gazing at it and running my hands over the quilting.
Quilting-wise, here’s what I’m planning upon doing:
  • String blocks:  Stippling with pink thread.  (Finished yesterday)
  • Hexagons:  Outline quilting with cream thread.  There’s twelve hexagon blocks and I’m finished with five of them so far.
  • White borders on hexagon blocks:  Straight outline quilting with white thread.
  • Blue outside borders on hexagon blocks:  I’m thinking about doing scallops, maybe with some sort of loop inside them to give the effect of eyelets?  I’m still trying to decide if I’m going to quilt that with blue thread or white thread.  I think the white thread would make it look more like eyelet lace coming off of the white borders.  But white thread would call attention to my quilting, which is mediocre at best…blue would hide the inconsistencies much better.  (You only get better with practice!)
  • Blue borders around perimeter of quilt:  No idea.  Blue or white thread, leaning towards blue.  Feathers?  More stippling?  Meandering flowers?  Interlocking scallops?  So many choices!
  • Maybe doing something with the blue background around the hexagons.  Blue thread, stretchy loops extending from hexagons out the edges.  If I have time and decide it would be good.  I don’t want to overdo the quilting; leaving that alone might make the hexagons “pop” a little better.

This is the first time I’ve quilted something I truly cared about, so it’s been a little nerve-wracking.  I’m still very new to free-motion quilting, so I’m forcing myself to keep soldiering on and not fret over every little imperfection.  “Done is better than perfect,” is my mantra, which I’ve adopted from Christina Cameli, whose book First Steps to Free-Motion Quilting infused me with the knowledge and courage to tackle this skill.  I’ll get better as I practice more, and this quilt is very nice with my skills where there are right now.  Just be happy.  🙂

ETA:  Silly me!  Some of you are asking for a full shot of the completed quilt top, so here it is, via my Instagram account.

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Storybook Hexagon Quilt Update

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The kicker about a craft blog is that you need to craft in order to have something worth blogging about.  When I’ve come upon some free time over the past month, I’ve asked myself, “Get ahead on the quilt, or write about the quilt?”  I’ve chosen getting ahead each time.

And it’s been working quite well for me.  I’m in the home stretch of finishing the top!  The twelve blocks above are, as of this morning, complete and sewn together, and I just finished sewing the first strip of sashing to one side.  Unfortunately, I noticed a little twinge of pain in my left wrist as I was helping the bulk of the quilt top along the side of my sewing machine, so I decided to take a break and let it all rest for the rest of today.  And that, my friends, is a great time to start writing about the quilt!

At one point of assembly I got so tired of messing things up
that I started posting reminder photos of the measurements
I was aiming for on my Facebook page.  I imagine my
non-crafty FB friends think I have issues.

I counted up all the different fabrics being used–there are twenty seven different fabrics at play in this project.  The hexagons hail from three different prints I picked out at superbuzzy.com, and everything but the powder blue background fabric are bits and pieces from the stash and random fat quarters I’ve bought as I’ve found them appealing.  The design of the top is almost word-for-word the cover quilt of Hexa-go-go, except with some serious shrinking down–the “full” blocks of the cover quilt measure in at 16 inches, while these are 11 inches.  The hexagons are one-inch hexagons, lovingly hand-basted and stitched by yours truly.

I really should have just bought the entire bolt of the powder blue fabric when I found it, four stores into my quest.  Powder blue is not an easy color to find in shops right now, all the light blues lean towards aqua and turquoise.  I’m being exceptionally frugal with my limited amount of powder blue fabric, despite having already made a second trip to the fabric store and knowing that I could return and get more if I ran out.  It’s become a “thing” now, and I’m dedicated to the idea of NOT needing more powder blue fabric.  I’m even going to do a pieced back in order to conserve some powder blue.  There’s lots of red and pink strings leftover from piecing the blocks, so I’ve pieced a long row of them to break up the back of the quilt.  Depending on how much powder blue I have left, I might piece together some more rows.

Wanna see my favorite photo of quilt progress thus far?  Here it is:

My kids have learned what the term “photo bombing” means, and so now they take any opportunity to try it out, especially when it involves crafts.  (I think they’re trying to send me a message.)

One of my friends stopped to chat with me on the sidewalk this past week, and she mentioned that she absolutely loved watching for update photos of the quilt on Facebook.  She then told me that she had no idea how I was going to be able to choose which one of my girls as owner of the finished project, and that, if it were her, she’d just frame the thing and put it up on the wall as the art it was.  Talk about flattered!

What’s funny about it all is that I was having the same thoughts about it!  Not about who to give it to, because that was already decided when I started, but the thing about it being “art.”  When I saw the fabric at superbuzzy.com, a vision of this quilt appeared in my mind’s eye, and I was a goner.  I tried to talk myself out of it because I knew it would be time-intensive, and I already have some big ol’ time-intensive projects geared up to go in the queue, but I just couldn’t shake this project from my heart.  I had to make it.  So I plunged into it with boldness and a giddy sort of fearlessness that comes to me but rarely.  I feel like an artist, painting broad swathes of color across a blank canvas and being utterly enchanted with the result.  This has been a joy to create.  I totally love it.

Which is good, because the next quilt on my list is this all over again…but on a bigger scale.  I’ve learned some good things working on this rendition that will make the next one have neater seam matches, which I’m glad about.

So I while I feel I should apologize for the severe lack of blog posts that are happening on this lil’ blog o’ mine, I feel like it would be silly and insincere.  I’m busy creating art; which takes time, concentration, and applied effort–which are in short supply whilst juggling the demands of life.

How blessed we are to be able to do the things that bring us joy.

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Monday Morning Star Count

Storybook Hexagons!

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I am utterly smitten with this project.  I came across some super cute fabric with storybook and folksy prints at Super Buzzy, and I could not contain myself.  I had to have it.  So I bought it, with plans to make fussy-cut hexagons for a child’s quilt.

I love this fabric.  There’s three different prints in these photos: a storybook print with stamps and German words, a Scandinavian folk art-style print, and a print of music students with little berets–so French!  It’s a multicultural hexie extravaganza quilt!

I finished piecing the hexagon “blossoms” this morning, and I’m spending whatever free time I can find cutting up fabric for the rest of the blocks.  I’m leaning towards a red, pink, and aqua color theme–definitely feminine, but not in-your-face with the pink, because a lot of moms don’t like that for some reason.  (I’m not one of those moms, but I do also enjoy a non-traditional take on “girl” colors.)

I do not currently possess any fabric that I like for the background of the appliques, so my hands are tied until I can make a trip to the fabric store.  I’m cutting strips for string piecing until that time.  I am so excited for this quilt!

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