Tag Archives: hexagon quilts

Wednesday’s Flower

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While I’m working on my aunt’s quilt, I am going to try to restrict the amount I get distracted from it by other projects.   So One Flower Wednesdays will be, for me, truly One Flower Wednesdays!  This week I decided to make another of the large ones with the 1″ hexagons.  The back:

To see more flowers done by gardeners on One Flower Wednesday, go to Karen‘s post here where there’s a list of all the gardeners with links to their blogs.

This was taken a few days ago out on the roof garden:

Something must have told me I would end up making more than one of the Spring Circles quilts.  I have kept the fabrics I’ve used for it in a separate container, which I would not normally do.  It’s going to be quite simple to go through and cut the pieces for the beginning of the new Spring Circles quilt for us when I get the one for my aunt finished.

Tuesday was a very grey cool day here.  It was dark enough that we had to turn the lamps on almost as soon as we got up in the morning.  The cats found places to curl up and sleep.  Smudge with a teddy:

And Lester in the chair:

Flowers for the Garden

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The pretty little box was loaded with all that’s necessary to make some flowers for the garden and three flowers were made on Wednesday.

This will be a small quilt — perhaps a little doll’s or teddy bear’s quilt.   I think there will be about 10 flowers, or perhaps even less, in total for this one.  These are 1″ hexagons and they seem enormous in comparison to the .50″ ones I was working with last week.

The backs:

To see flowers made by other hexagon gardeners on One Flower Wednesday, go to Karen’s blog and on her sidebar you will see the names of the gardeners with links to their blogs.

I’ve been looking through the Japanese hexagon book again and, among other quilts that catch my eye, this one really interests me because of the quilting design used in the flowers.  It’s very pretty and very effective.  I think if you click on the picture to enlarge it, you’ll be able to see it.

One of the trees on the roof garden, and I have no idea what type of tree it is, has these little pink buds on it.  I don’t remember ever noticing it flowering before so have no idea what these will turn into.

Lester once again showing why we think of him as the house lion.

While Smudge was having an after-dinner nap.

One Flower Wednesday … on Thursday

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These little flowers are so fast to put together that I couldn’t resist making 4 of them.  My idea for a quilt using these is changing quite a bit though.  I may be putting these in a quilt of their own rather than with the blossoms seen here.

The backs:

Do you want to see more hexagon flowers being done for One Flower Wednesday?  Karen, the hostess of One Flower Wednesday, is making them as seen here.  Danielle,  Ann,  Sandra and Valentina are all adding flowers to their gardens as well.

Tuesday night I spent some time looking through this book before I fell asleep and, of course, woke up Wednesday morning with all sorts of ideas.  Although the instructions are written in Japanese, it really doesn’t matter as there are tons of illustrations.

There are a number of super hexagon quilts in the book. This is one of my favourites:

Although this picture doesn’t quite show it, at one point Wednesday afternoon the sky got quite stormy looking.  I thought we might have had our first thunderstorm of the season, but we had only a brief downpour of rain.  I just realized we didn’t even have thunder snow last winter so it has been ages since we’ve had a storm.  As evident from the picture, the leaves on the tree are just starting to open.

Lester was at his normal post for this time of year — on the windowsill.

While Smudge seemingly decided it was a great day to laze about.  He always makes me laugh when he stretches out like this.

One Flower Wednesdays

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I made half a dozen of these little flowers using half-inch hexagons.  To give an idea of the size of them, there’s a nickel in the middle of one.  I think I may alternate between these tiny ones and some made with the 1″ hexagons as I do have an idea for a small quilt using those as well.

Just to show the difference in size, this are some 1″ hexagons with the same nickel:

I really like working with .75″ hexagons as well so think I’ll print some fabrics to make a few of those.  If I’m doing One Flower Wednesdays, I may as well have a variety of sizes.

This week has turned out to be different than I anticipated.  I wasn’t expecting to be as busy as I have been.  As a result, I’m not getting around to blogs as much as usual nor have I responded to comments for a day or two.  Once today is over, then I’ll get caught up!

We had another absolutely glorious day on Wednesday.  Lots of sunshine.  Now I know it’s truly getting warm out there.  Some of the sun worshippers in the building were out on the roof garden Wednesday afternoon in their bathing suits.  That is a first — I don’t ever remember anyone being able to do that here this early.

Lester was busy on the windowsill watching as the gardener was out there adding soil to the flower beds.

Smudge looks rather pensive in this shot, I think.

Planning the Alabama Beauty Blocks

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These three little stacks of pieces represent the next three blocks for the quilt.  I’m still searching for the right name for it, so until then it’s simply “the quilt”.

I can see that working with the quilt is going to become more difficult the larger it gets unless I start putting it together in quadrants.  I’ve pretty well decided on a setting of 12 by 12 blocks, so I think what I’ll do is make four segments of 6 by 6 blocks.  That should make it somewhat less cumbersome to deal with until the end when I will join the four segments.  It’s rather amazing to realize that I’m over halfway done the first of four segments.  This is going together faster than I had anticipated.

On Linda’s blog yesterday, she showed some great layouts using controlled colour placement in the Alabama Beauty blocks that give totally different effects.  One of them gave me an idea for a quilt with the Improved 9-Patch block, which is another block that I do want to play with, although not a king-sized quilt.

I’ve joined in on the One Flower Wednesdays with Karen and Valentina.  At some point today I will be making at least one or two hexagon flowers, which I will show tomorrow.  I have an idea for a small lap quilt that will incorporate a few hexagon flowers made of 1″ hexagons and I think I’m going to use a small border of flowers made with half-inch hexagons to surround this piece when I get it to whatever size I finally decide on as large enough.

We had another gloriously sunny day on Tuesday.  The leaf buds on the trees on the roof garden are really starting to swell and show a little green.  With any luck we’ll have leaves in front of the living room window hiding the other high-rise towers before the end of the month.

This shot of Lester makes me laugh.  This was taken only moments after he had been brushed.  I don’t know why he does it, but as soon as he has been combed or brushed, he immediately starts licking and chewing on his ruff and looks so unkempt!  In this shot, I’m not sure if he’s meowing at something out on the roof garden or if we caught him in the midst of yawning.

According to Mr. Q.O., Smudge was thinking about “where’s dinner?” in this shot.

Hexagon Rows

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This is the other hexagon project I’m working on.  It will be a large lap quilt composed of  row after row of hexagons.  They’re in no particular order, just added as I stitched them into rows.  I had lots of these 1″ hexagons from various swaps on the Inklingo list and knew I wanted to do something other than a traditional GFG quilt, so decided to do this.  It is going to be very colourful when finished.  All the rows are stitched so now it’s just a matter of stitching the rows to one another, which really doesn’t take all that long.  A portion of the back:

One thing I have learned is to press as I go.  So after I add each row, I press.  When I made this king-sized shabby chic quilt out of 1″ elongated and regular hexagons, I left the pressing to the end.  That was a very big mistake.  It took hours of standing at the ironing board.

Lester has a favourite toy.  It’s a blue and white ball that makes a jingling noise when moved.  He keeps it in his kitty bed most of the time and loves to spear it with a claw and wiggle it about to make the noise.  Yesterday he tossed it out of his bed and then appears to have decided he had to make sure Smudge couldn’t get it so he was lying like this, sound asleep, with the ball right under his chin.  For good measure he had another toy there as well.

Smudge, on the other hand, was back in full lounge mode.  As usual, he knew he was having his picture taken — if you look closely, you can see that one eye is just barely open.

Patchwork of the Crosses

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Remember these?  That picture is one I posted about 5 months ago of 9 of the Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses blocks .  There are others that have been surrounded by the white hexagons and purple batik squares but not all of them yet.  It’s time to get these done and find the right fabric for the connecting squares at the intersection of the blocks.  So what have I been working on?

The surrounding cream hexagons are what I’ve been working on.   I join them into groups of three which I’ll later join to make the frame for each block.  I have a stack of these cream hexagons all printed and cut out, ready to stitch and that’s what I’m going to concentrate on until that stack is all put together into frames ready to stitch to the blocks.  It has been so long now that I can’t remember how many more I’ll need to print, so once I get this grouping of them stitched I’ll be able to figure out how many more I need to complete the top.  While I work on these, I’m going to contemplate whether I want to make a few more of the blocks with some other fabrics, just for fun to see what other effects I can get with some stripes and other directional fabrics.

We had another early spring day on Tuesday, marvelous really for mid March.  But it sounds like winter isn’t quite done with us as we’re going to drop from temperatures around the mid 50s down to wind chills in the minus range sometime between Sunday and Monday.  I hope the forecast is wrong and that the cold weather will miss us.

Lester is ready for spring.  He’s spending more and more time on the windowsill or, to be more precise, on the heating unit stretched out, watching out the window for that first bird or squirrel to make an appearance.

Smudge won’t bother until he hears the birds.  The windowsill is really Lester’s territory.  Smudge is much more interested in looking cute and getting attention than paying attention to what’s going on outdoors.  Who could resist this face?

World’s Biggest Hexagon Quilt

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A few more hexagon rosettes were done over the weekend for the Aussie Hexagon Challenge. More will be made before the week’s out and then I’ll send them off.

The backs. They are so easy to make with lots and lots of lovely continuous stitching — and they press wonderfully.


I thought the migraine from last week would never leave. However, it finally did on Sunday. It’s this bizarre weather we’re having, I’m sure. It’s supposed to be amazingly mild most of this week. The longer the mild weather stays, the better.

The kitties were very busy chasing leaves as they flew by the window. Smudge was, I think, getting tired when we got this shot of him!

While Lester was incredibly alert.


Tiny Hexagons

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As I have lots and lots of these printed, cut out and ready to stitch, I’ve been working a little bit on the flower buds top again. These are half-inch hexagons which I’ve pieced into 4-unit buds. I’m thinking I may just make this large enough for a doll’s or teddy bear’s quilt.

The back of this one fascinates me — love how it looks after pressing.

Lester in his normal spot — by the window.


Smudge pondering something. Perhaps a toy on the floor or whether it’s a time for a nap?


Hexagon Stripe Progress

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The fourth row was added Friday evening. I’m going to try to keep adding a row a week but now that the Patchwork of the Crosses collection has arrived, I have a feeling everything is going to take a back seat to those wonderful blocks.

My second POTC block is halfway done. I’m having a lot of fun with this one — playing with fabric placement, fabric types and colours. It’s definitely a lot wilder than my first POTC block!

What an absolutely great long weekend this is turning out to be, albeit rather chilly. We even had a frost warning for Sunday night. But the best part of it, for me, is playing with the POTC blocks.

Lester, in his usual spot — on the windowsill.

And Smudge, in yet another upside-down pose.