Friday 10 March 2017

Hexagon Horror Finale

Ta Da - a finish. My Hexagon Horror quilt measuring 41" x 37".

Since my last hexagon post I had filled in the sides with some almost half hexagons and I was ready to put on the borders. I cut the first one a bit longer than necessary and, with the papers still inside my hexagons, I laid the quilt edge on top of a border, on a flat surface. With the help of a little Sewline fabric glue and after pinning in place, it was quite simple to attach with the blind hem stitch on my machine - exactly as you would when doing machine applique. (See Freezer Paper Applique ). I repeated this with the other three sides.

I added two more outer borders; removed all the papers, cutting away the excess fabric of the first border, and I was ready for quilting.

2016 was supposed to have been my year for getting proficient at FMQ and I did lots of practice .... honest! I thought that this small quilt would be ideal as my first proper FMQ project, but after more play on a sample piece I chickened out and used my walking foot. I wanted to do a flower pattern in each large hexagon and worked out that I could sew from top to bottom in curves and then similarly diagonally across the quilt in both directions to achieve this. I marked out the lines with a cardboard template (this bowl seems to be just the right size for loads of my projects!!??) and a Frixion pen.

These photos show the back of the quilt so that you can see the quilting lines. The first is taken after sewing all the lines from top to bottom. The second is after adding the two diagonal lines at right angles to each other.

It worked quite well although I must admit to some puckering in the centres of the flowers and plenty of wobbly lines despite feed dogs up and an even feed foot. Rather less though than there would have been if I'd stuck to my FMQ idea!! :)

This pic shows the quilt and backing

and this is a corner of the quilt. I do hope that you are impressed with my mitred corners to the borders, so as to match up the pattern ........ I know I am!!

I used my own tutorial to bind the quilt - Step by Step Quilt Binding
And these are the links to my previous posts about this hexagon quilt:

Making Donuts              Hexagons Update            Hexagon Horror Story

This may be my first and last Hexagon quilt ...... but you never know.
Happy stitching - Anita x

I'm linking to crazy mom quilts - finish it up friday

3 comments:

  1. it is a beautiful quilt. Looks like a lot of hard work.Hence 'horror' in the title?

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    Replies
    1. The Horror started when I was too impatient to carry on with slow hand stitching and turned to my sewing machine instead ...... scary! But I think it turned out OK nevertheless.

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  2. Beautiful, beautiful quilt! The quilting is very nice, also. I love how you solved your problems along the way.
    Cheers,
    Sylvia at Treadlestitches

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