The last 34 Glorious hexagons that I showed here were made all cut from the Panel Fabric. I decided to put together three layer stacks of both sections of the Panel Fabric and cut nothing but Kim and Dolores blocks from those stacks.

Here is the entire Panel Fabric from which the sections were cut.

The stack above is the first section.

The stack above is the second section.

Here we have the first section with four pieces cut to make four Kim blocks.

Here we have the first section totally exhausted of possible Kim and Doloris cuts.

Here we have the second section totally exhausted of possible Kim and Dolores cuts.

Committing myself to cutting both sections completely with Kim and Dolores blocks did result in some blocks that I might not otherwise have cut. I imposed these restrictions upon myself simply as a means of stretching my limits, and I believe it was a worthwhile exercise. That being said, I did not feel it was beneficial to cut every possible area in the second section of the Panel Fabric. Looking at the piece above you can see areas that could have been cut into Kim and Dolores blocks, but I felt that to do so would not result in very good blocks. Therefore, I left those areas behind so I could cut smaller shapes later.

 

Here are the 17 blocks made from the first section of the Panel Fabric arranged next to each other without setting triangles.

Here are the 17 blocks made from the second section of the Panel Fabric arranged next to each other without setting triangles.

Here are the 17 blocks made from the first section of the Panel Fabric arranged next to each other with setting triangles.

Here are the 17 blocks made from the second section of the Panel Fabric arranged next to each other with setting triangles.

Here are all 34 blocks made from both sections of the Panel Fabric without setting triangles.

I would have taken a photograph of all of the blocks with setting triangles, but I had run out of Kona Chocolate at the time. Since taking these shots I have combined many of these blocks into larger hexagon units, so I’ve missed the opportunity to photograph them together with setting triangles.

As a result of my three layer panel experiment I have come to a few conclusions. First of all I really love blocks such as Kim and Doloris with very few pieces. I intend to make more of these three piece blocks along with a few other blocks that use only six pieces, such as Carol and Doris. Blocks like these are especially well suited to fabrics that have large elements of subject matter. This is the case with the Panel Fabric. It is also the case with the Large Horse Head Fabric. My second conclusion is that I find it limiting to work with only a three layer stack. I felt that it made me make too many arbitrary compositional choices. I think moving forward that I will be making only six layer stacks and accepting the fact that this will yield duplicates when cutting Kim blocks. It will also leave me with extra pieces when I require only three repeats of certain shapes in some blocks.

My next post is going to feature the nine inch large hexagons that I have been putting together using these blocks.