The Farmer’s Wife QAL has been taking over my creative life. I have mentioned it a few times, and as I look back over the titles of my blog posts over the last few months I know this to be true. I seem to have time for nothing else, and I write about nothing else. For that very reason, in the spirit of the Slow Stitching Movement, I must drag myself away from my new comfort zone. I also want to write about something besides The farmer’s Wife Quilt.
So I have joined up with the new Facebook group called “Glorious Hexagons“.
This QAL is being organized by Liza Prior Lucy, Kim McLean, and the folks at Paper Pieces. In order to participate in the QAL you need a book and a booklet. It also helps to purchase the templates for fussy cutting as well as the papers used for paper piecing. I decided to lay out cash for the whole shebang, and you will find the evidence of that below:
I had already purchased the book above from Amazon awhile ago.
The rest of the items I bought from Paper Pieces starting with the Glorious Hexagon booklet.
I got the pack of papers for the first month of blocks.
I got the set of templates for the New Hexagon.
I got the add on templates for the Kim and Liza blocks.
I also picked up the three inch hexagon template. Man, a three inch hexagon is seriously huge! I am used to using one inch hexagons, and these three inch babies are really huge. But, heh, that is a good thing because it means that throwing in a few of those big mother hexagons will make the work go faster.
At the present time I am feeling just a little bit intimidated by the idea of fussy cutting and working with patterned fabric. I might decide to get started with this using some solids. I really like the way the blocks looked in the New Hexagon book when they showed them done in solids for a rainbow table runner. This might also give me cause to purchase some new Kona solids. I need blues, yellows, and oranges, and a greater variety of reds. I’ve got the greens and violets pretty well covered.
We feel the same way about FW. I love the FW, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve worked hard on it since late August and I’m itching to work on something else, as well. I just finished #78 today and I might make only 86 of the 99 blocks. So the end is in sight. I can’t imagine hand sewing them! I would be on #4!!
Have fun with your new project!!
I am not going to need all 99 blocks for what I want to do either, so it is time for me to start being selective. I have come to the point where I am convinced that there isn’t a block in the bunch that I can’t make. Therefore, I no longer need to do each block just to prove to myself that I can do it. #40 Grandmother does not speak to me at all, so I am not going to make her. I am actually farther along than I appear to be because I have a few blocks finished that I have not blogged about. Moving forward for the next week I am going to be basting papers and putting them in bags so I an sew the blocks at the Michner Museum when I demonstrate hand stitching there. Usually I finish one section of a block at a time and assemble as I go, so this is different for me. But I really just want to be sewing rather than cutting and basting when I demo.
I have to figure out how many blocks I need for my quilt. I have decided to just cover the top of the bed with the blocks and to extend down the sides and bottom of the quilt with a variation on the sashing. The sashing is going to be wider than what I have seen in most examples so I anticipate needing 5 x 7 blocks or maybe 6 x 9 blocks. It is hard to say until I draw out the sashing design.
Thanks for following my progress.
I think your Glorious Hexagons will look great in solids. I know what you mean about working on and writing about the same thing. I’m finished with blocks on a quilt I’m making and now I’m appliquéing all those EPP edges to borders. i like the way it’s going, but it takes forever and doesn’t really give me anything much to write about!