Hexagons

I'm still working on the Half Square Triangles from the end of last week but, ever since the beginning of last week when I showed you photos of My Mum's Quilt, hexagons seem to be popping up all over the place! I think it's mainly that the children, having looked at the quilt with new eyes, are now spotting hexagons and pointing them out to me like mad. And tessellating hexagons in particular create the most excitement at the moment! Generally it's when we're out and about, maybe in the car, and I can't take photos. But I have got one really good example I can share with you - really good because it also ties in with the half square triangles that are going on here at the moment:

A half rectangle triangles quilt? Think about spiltting the more obvious triangle shapes in half, then pairing them up with the split triangle of a different colour next to them, this makes the rectangles.

I'm hoping this is clear enough for you to see the pattern. It was hard to get anything like a decent photo because this is actually a pattern on an envelope, so it's really small and also quite pale. Venetia was given a card in this envelope, and was just as excited about the envelope as she was about the contents once she spotted there were hexxies going on in the pattern! And I think (someone more experienced than me please correct me if I'm wrong here) that if I were to try and recreate this pattern in a quilt (which Venetia desperately wants me to do now!) that I'd use half square triangles (or rather half rectangle triangles) to do it. So although it looks very complicated, and it would need careful colour placement to give the right effect, it is actually a reasonably straightforward quilt to construct, all machine sewable and all based around one simple shape. Watch this space for an example maybe - although I think it might be a mini quilt, at least to start with, perfect for Venetia's dolls perhaps.

Anyway, back with the hexxies. The children were busy this weekend making all things hexagon with acqua beads.



 

And I got infected with the hexxie bug. The half square triangles were put to one side and I remembered I'd bought this material a while back:

Perfect to join in with the hexxie bug. I only had a fat quarter of it (new fabric has to be rationed in this house, but I bought it from here if you're interested, Plush Addict), so, especially since I didn't really want to break up the lovely hexxie pattern, I thought a mini applique quilt might be good. Obviously it had to be bees, and not just any bees - hexxie bees! Don't get too excited because it's not finished yet, but here are a few photos of how it's going so far:

Brown and yellow fabric strips sewn together ready for the bee body templates

Fabric cut out, slightly larger than the templates, then ironed over the templates

One bee, edges all tacked under (in the red thread) about to be sewn on to the honeycomb fabric.

I've been wanting to make some mini quilts for ages so it feels great to have one started. I have plans for a wall of mini quilts so I hope it will be the first of many. I have always hankered after a patchwork wall and, a while back, my friend Emma (of Hope Sews fame) made me green with envy when she created this very beautiful patchwork wall:



Isn't it gorgeous? And I can tell you it looks even better in the flesh. I especially love the way Emma put in small things, like cards and photos, that have special meaning for her. It just made me want to 'patchwork' all sorts of different things rather than purely quilts. But as for that wall I'd love to have - despite wandering around my house many times considering every wall from every angle, I just couldn't find a wall where it would look good and be practical. And even with the extension that's being built for my parents I'm not sure there's a wall that's a good candidate. But then I saw this picture (on trusty Pinterest):


Hillary Lang Doll Quilt Wall from my Pinterest

And it occurred to me that this was something I could do quite easily to give me the kind of effect I was craving. So this is what the mini quilts are for eventually. They're going to go on the wall beside my stairs, which is much too boring at the moment. So expect to see more mini quilts cropping up here in the future (maybe the one for Venetia, based on her envelope, won't get to be for her dolls after all!).

I was going to show you one more hexxie lovely today, a bought quilt - quite unusual for me. But I think (and my children definitely think!) that this post is plenty long enough already so I'll save that for tomorrow.

Back then, Sally.