I’ll be away from home soon for a week, and I want to take enough basted hexagon pieces to last me for handwork through ten hours of train travel as well as any idle hours during my week away from home. When I started to think about this I was faced with some remnants of previous layer stacks which I exhausted of useful cuts. I made those cuts with no particular use in mind. After that I looked at my piles of yardage and decided that it was time to take inventory and make up layer stacks for every fabric in the Embracing Horses collection.

Since January, when I started making Glorious Hexagons, I have scoured the internet and purchased a great deal of fabric from the Embracing Horses collection. Every once in awhile someone from the Glorious Hexagons Facebook group will ask me how much fabric I bought for this quilt. It is a reasonable question to ask, but not an easy one to answer. I can’t imagine that one could possibly plan out a Glorious Hexagons Quilt well enough to buy the fabric in advance.

The Glorious Hexagons project is by its very nature an evolving work. I may still seek out and purchase more fabric as I continue. There was a time when I was loath to add any solids to the mix, but I changed my mind about that when I started to assemble large hexagons using triangle shapes. I found Kona Solids that worked well with my fabric, so anything is possible.

This post will be an attempt to express how much fabric I have remaining to date of the various fabrics that make up the Embracing Horses collection. When people ask me how much fabric I have bought I will be able to refer them here.

Let’s start out with the big reveal of the huge pile of layer stacks that I was able to create over the course of the past week. This pile is composed of layer stacks (using six layers) of every one of the ten fabrics in the Embracing Horses collection including the Panel Fabric, which I have divided into Section One and Section Two segments.

Above I show 20 yards of fabric cut from ten different patterns and pinned into stacks with widths of 8 inches, 12 inches, and 24 inches.

I will show the various stacks below so you can see the individual patterns clearly.

I made two stacks of Section One of the Panel Fabric.

I made two stacks of Section Two of the Panel Fabric.

The four stacks from the Panel Fabric, being approximately 24 inches wide, represent eight yards of fabric. They are pictured folded for storage so they do not show off the full pattern of the fabric. I will show them unfolded below.

I wasn’t sure at first if I would enjoy working with these panels. But after I started to cut into them to make Kim blocks I really fell in love with this fabric. It is my favorite fabric in the collection. I still have twelve more yards of this fabric in the form of 18 panels. In addition to the panels shown above there is a small strip at the bottom of each panel with gold lettering. I have not yet decided how I will make use of those. I have used some of that fabric so far to cut brown tone on tone pieces from the background.

Here we have stacks that are eight inches wide of what I call the Running Horses fabric and the Jumping Horses fabric. These stacks amount to 48 inches of yardage each. I have six yards remaining of the Running Horses fabric, which is enough to make three more layer stacks. I also have an additional yard of the Running Horses fabric.

I have three more yards of the Jumping Horses fabric, which is enough to make two more layer stacks with 12 inches left over.

I have found both of these fabrics to be quite useful in the creation of my Glorious Hexagons.

Here we have stacks that are eight inches wide of the Birds on Yellow fabric and the Birds on Black fabric. These stacks amount to 48 inches of yardage each. I don’t have enough of either of these fabrics to make another layer stack. I do have eight inches of the Birds on Yellow fabric and 24 inches of the Birds on Black fabric. These are the fabrics that I like the least in the collection. They each have their charm, but I have not enjoyed using them in the hexagons very much. I doubt I will order more of either of these.

Above we have an eight inch wide stack of the Blue Mane fabric. We also have a twelve inch wide stack of the Blue Mottled fabric. The top stack amounts to 48 inches of yardage and the bottom stack amounts to two yards of fabric.

I have about two yards of the of the Blue Mane fabric remaining, unfortunately it is in three separate pieces, so I am not sure that I could piece together a stack from what I have. I have only a couple inches left of the Blue Mottled fabric.

Above we have an eight inch wide stack of the Rust Mane fabric. We also have a twelve inch wide stack of the Yellow Mottled fabric. The top stack amounts to 48 inches of yardage and the bottom stack amounts to two yards of fabric.

I have a yard piece and also a 24 inch piece of the Rust Mane fabric left. I have a yard left of the Yellow Mottled fabric.

Finally we have the fabric that started it all, the Horse Head Fabric. Above we have a twelve inch wide stack which represents two yards of fabric. I have at least eight yards left of this fabric, which is enough to make four more stacks.

So this is what I’ve got. I have twenty yards of fabric already make into stacks, and 40 more yards, most of which can be made into stacks in the future. I think there could be a few quilts here. I certainly have enough fabric to explore many possibilities, especially with the introduction of solids.

This post is about the fabric I have remaining. What I had used up to this point is anyone’s guess. I’d guess at least ten yards, probably more. So we have in excess of seventy yards of fabric purchased to feed my obsession with this project and whatever projects emerge from the remains.

A word of advice to anyone who wants to stick with a collection of fabric for a Glorious Hexagons quilt… Pick a collection still in print and save yourself the need to scour the internet.