The key to creating great Glorious Hexagons is fussy cutting. This can be done one piece of fabric at a time. One can eyeball the remaining cuts to match the first going on to create multiples of 2, 3, 4, or 6 depending upon the effects desired. I started out eyeballing my fussy cuts, but I found that this resulted in pieces of yardage riddled with holes. It was also very difficult finding the repeats desired. After making a few cuts from a piece of yardage I found myself feeling as if I was on a hunting expedition to find what I needed. I also ended up with far more wasted fabric than necessary.

I knew about layering. It is explained in the companion booklet for the Glorious Hexagons project. But I was afraid to do it. I was afraid that I wouldn’t pin the layers accurately enough. I had six repeats of the large horse head print cut. I had even purchased extra thin pins to increase accuracy when layering. All that remained was to finally screwed up my courage to pin my repeats together.

I started out with one pin near the center of the repeat (as recommended) and worked my way out.

one pin

I found it helpful to pick really easily recognizable points to match in the pattern each time I added a pin. I started with the corner of the eye on the horse above. When matching points I slide the fabric all the way to the head of the pin before looking for the point on the next piece of fabric. Then I slide that one to the head of the pin and continue on in that manner. The first set of points is the hardest because the fabric needs to be aligned vertically and horizontally at this stage of the process. I looked to the edges of the repeat to see that I was doing this correctly.

two pins

Each time I added a new pin I slipped my fabric slightly off the edge of the table to align each additional point having all layers pushed up against the head of the pin, grabbing the fabric to hold it in place before pulling the head up slightly to anchor the pin in place.

three pins

four pins

five pins

After getting the pieces adequately pinned I was ready to begin cutting. I put a fresh blade into my rotary cutter and picked an area to cut out a hexagon shape. I focused in on an area where two horse manes overlapped to get a repeat with an abstract feeling.

Sometimes an area I wanted to cut had a pin in it. in that case I simply added more pins nearby and eliminated any pins that interfered with the cutting of the shape I wanted to make. Once the initial anchor pins are lined up it is safe to add pins without needing to align the fabric because the fabric is already in alignment.

I was skeptical about the accuracy of the layering, but you can see from the image above that it was quite accurate. The second piece from the top is slightly miss aligned, but only by a little bit. “Good enough for government work”, as they say.

Not bad if you ask me.

As I was cutting shapes I found that it was possible to place my cuts really close together to make optimal use of my fabric. I am really getting my money’s worth out of these pieces.

Cutting away shapes from the aligned fabric, and placing them close together, made me think beyond what I might have ordinarily cut. I was also no longer thinking about the next hexagon immediately at hand. Instead I was thinking of how to make the best use of my yardage, and looking for shapes that would do that. I was trusting that I would be able to use those shapes for future hexagons. As I was trying to get as much out of the fabric as possible I discovered that I could cut one inch diamonds of solid color by using the necks of the horses. I cut some shapes not even sure how I might use them in the future. I knew I would find a way to work them into some hexagon that would come along.

This is the same area as the photo above it but turned on its side. It shows how the one inch diamond fits in the solid area. I wanted to use some solids in my hexagons, but I thought it would be best if they came from the fabric rather than from some nearly matched Kona Solid.

These are the pieces that were left after I had used every possible area on my first set of layered fabrics. I know it looks as if I could get shapes out of some of the remaining fabric, but I tried. The 3/8 inch seam allowance takes up quite a bit of room on the small shapes, and does make for quite a bit of wastage.

Here are some sets of six waiting for their final destinations…

as well as some sets of three which remained after I used three of the shapes that had been cut.

My experience with aligning and cutting layers has convinced me that it is worth the effort to cut the repeats and pin them in place. With the large horse head print I want to cut and pin a few sets of fabric so I have more choices as I fussy cut for specific hexagon designs.

One thing to consider when cutting your repeats is where the repeat starts and ends. I don’t want to start and end my repeat in the exact same place for each set because that would make it impossible to cut parts of the design that correspond with the edge of the original repeat. If I start the repeat in another location I will have additional options.

If you are participating in the Facebook group for the Glorious Hexagon project consider trying layering if you have not already done so. The rewards are well worth the effort in my opinion.

I am updating this post. Today someone in the Glorious Hexagons Facebook group was asking about fussy cutting and I provided a link to this post. Another member of the group asked what happened with the six hexagons that were made with the first cut from this layer stack. Here is the answer to that question.

Those one inch hexagons found their way into a Judy block. In fact, it was the 17th block I created for the project. Notice that the central hexagon of this Judy is made from three diamonds. These diamonds and the diamonds along the outside of the block were cut from the neck of one of the horses in the fabric.

That Judy block made its way into the large hexagon above.

Sail the ship.
Chop the tree.
Skip the rope.
Look at me.

Altogether now…

The above represents the pieced and solid hexagons that I have made so far. I wanted to place them next to each other to get a feel for what the finished piece will look like.

Here are just the pieced hexagons, and I think it is obvious that they need the visual relief of the solid hexagons.

Here are solid hexagons showing all of the fabrics that I have obtained to work with so far. The above nine fabrics are from the Embracing Horses collection by Laurel Burch. I will be taking these hexagons with me to the Pennington Quilt Works when I go shopping for some complementary tone on tone fabrics to use along with what I already have.

The collection comes in a couple more color ways that I was not aware of until I searched for more fabric to complete this project. They are very attractive, but would not combine well with what I have here.

I found a source online for these fabrics and was even able to obtain three panels like the one pictured above. Those panels should provide me with some interesting fussy cutting possibilities. I may even try to obtain four more panels, three to fussy cut, and one to put on the back of the quilt.

Great stuff…

and more great stuff.

I am not sure how I am going to make use of all of this fabric, but I am really excited about the project. Each block feels like a finished piece.

I had all the tools at my disposal to get started on my Glorious Hexagon journey. Plus my six yards of the Feathers fabric had arrived. I wanted to start, but I was afraid to cut into that precious Feathers fabric. In order to get going I decided to simply jump in with something I had on hand. I had some of the Embracing Horses collection by Laurel Burch, which I had used awhile back to make some containers. I grabbed some yardage from the largest print and got to work. Here are the blocks I made:

 

 

#54 Kim.

The first block I tackled was #54 Kim. All three of the blocks above are Kim. The first month came with enough papers to make three of these Kim blocks. They are the simplest of the pieced hexagons, so I thought it would be a good place to start my journey. I was still a bit concerned about pinning layers for fabric for fussy cutting multiple layers so I did my fussy cutting by eyeballing the pattern. I posted these to the Glorious Hexagons Facebook Group and they were well received.

#6 Delores

The second block I tackled was #6 Delores. All three of the block immediately above are Delores. Delores offers the same level of simplicity as Kim, so it was a logical second choice for me. I like to ease myself into the waters of the unknown. Fussy cutting is definitely outside of my comfort level since I had never done it before. The rest of the blocks I have made so far are shown below in no particular order.

#2 Carol

#13 Judy

Judy appeals to me because it is actually a Grandmother’s Flower Garden piece with some diamonds added to flesh it out. The flower garden part is easy, but adding those diamonds I found to be difficult. It seems that the first edge goes on easily, but then the second edge inevitably needs to be stretched a bit in order to make it fit. That doesn’t make sense to me, but I am doing it anyway. My first Judy utilized a decorative portion of the large horsehead print featured in most of the blocks above. If you look carefully you can see the mouth of a horse along one of the edges of the hexagons on the outside of the flower. This block also utilized the horse mane fabric from the Delores block as well as a nice gold filler fabric.

#13 Judy

This rendition of Judy is my favorite block so far. This is the block that forced me to consider the orientation of my hexagons in the finished quilt. I made that decision before I cut the bird for the center. One thing I especially like about this block is the way the blue and yellow horses are both shown as upright on the top and bottom of the flower. This happens because the yellow heads orient one way towards the center while the blue heads orient the other way towards the center.

After making this block I noticed that one could create a one inch hexagon for the center using three of the diamonds utilized along the edge. This would be a good way to allow this block to have a circular symmetrical effect like that found in a kaleidoscope without needing to revert to a solid (or tone on tome filler) for the center of the block.

#19 Nicole

Nicole is a bitch. There are no two ways about it. This block is not easy to do. I used four different fabrics for Nicole. For the first star I used heads from the Jumping Horses fabric. I thought I had all five heads the same, but you can see that the lowest head is actually a different head. Next time I will be more careful. I used birds for the bottom star. For the left star I deliberately cut five different portions of heads from the large horse head print. The blue head nearly melts into the border, which is an interesting effect. I used the Horse Mane fabric for the border. I am not altogether happy with the way the border works, but I think that when the block comes together with others that I will like it more.

Ten hexagons are done of the 28 for the first month. The first month is January, so I am already quite a bit behind, but I will not allow myself to stress about that. I am enjoying this journey immensely, and I feel much more at home with this project than I do with The Farmer’s Wife Quilt which I took on primarily as a challenge to my EPP skills. What I discovered is that I can stitch just about anything using EPP, which is comforting. I also discovered though that there is something vaguely unsatisfying about using EPP for a project that could be more easily done with some other method. This project, on the other hand, demands EPP. I like that.

I think I will find a way to bring The Farmer’s Wife Quilt to her logical conclusion and put my greatest efforts into Glorious Hexagons for now. The challenge will be to not allow the Farmer’s Wife Quilt to become a UFO. Perhaps the best way to do that is to allow it to be a wall hanging. We’ll see.

I’ve been working on this quilt now for four months. Up until recently I have done every block assigned and posted them within days of their completion. I even got ahead of the game with a few blocks. Now, however, I put a stop to that foolishness. and declare my independence. I no longer feel compelled to follow the crowd.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, I needed to prepare work for my stint at the Michener Art Museum, so I went off track to baste up a few blocks to have them on hand for the demo. However, the main reason for my reluctance to follow the crowd is that a block came up which I refused to do. It wasn’t because it was hard. It looked easy. It was because I didn’t want it in my quilt. At that point I realized that I didn’t need to make every block to prove I could make them. I had already proven that when I did Daffodil.

Here is the offending block.

#40 Grandmother

It isn’t an ugly block. It is just not an interesting block. If I had been working with patterned fabrics I might have been able to fussy cut something interesting to go into the basket, but I am doing this quilt in solids, so that option was out. I took one look at this block and something inside me said a loud, “No.”

Choosing not to make this block was a very freeing experience. After declaring my independence I realized that I didn’t need to do every block. My layout would probably require me to make choices among the remaining blocks anyway. Instead of making every block moving forward it would make sense to put some effort into examining the blocks I have made so far, come up with a design scheme, and to give some thought as to how future blocks can flesh out that final design.

I started by sorting my blocks into three categories: all green, all violet, and mixed. What I found is that I have 40 blocks completed, some of which have not yet been featured on the blog. Four of them are green, eight of them are violet, and 28 of them are mixed.

My instincts tell me that I should be making more green blocks. So the next couple of blocks I make will be all green unless they scream for some violet to be included.

After looking at the colors of my blocks I then resorted them into ones I definitely want to incorporate into the final quilt design, and ones that might be better used in testing out a sashing strategy on a smaller sampler piece. Here are the results:

31 blocks made the cut for the final quilt, and nine may get sacrificed for the greater good. Here is a potential layout for the sampler piece. I anticipate the hunter green area to be broken up with some Raisin.

I’ll feature the Daffodil block in the center of the sample. I do not intend to make any more flowers, though that might change. The only reason I made Daffodil was to prove to myself that I could make it. Having made it I now believe I can make any of the blocks if I choose to. So now I can choose not to make any of them that I think will not be a good addition to the final piece.

I have at least four blocks that I have not yet shown, so my next post will be devoted to that task plus any more I create between now and then.

Last week my husband, Ted, and I drove to the Michener Art Museum to see Mark Lipinski, Liza Lucy, and Meg Cox demonstrating hand stitching. They were doing hexagon Blocks from the Glorious Hexagons QAL. While we enjoyed seeing the demo immensely, and especially enjoyed seeing Mark Lipinski out and about and looking good, the main purpose of the visit was to see the Kaffe Fassett exhibit called Blanket Statements. The secondary purpose of the visit was to see if I could drive to the museum on my own the following week. I was schedules to demonstrate hand stitching myself with three other women on behalf of the Central Jersey Modern Quilt Guild and I didn’t want to bother my husband to drive me. It turned out that we got seriously lost on the way to museum, so my husband said he would drive me yesterday for my demo, and he did. What a sweetie he is.

Here we are, the representatives of the CJMQG, in a picture taken in front of one of the Kaffe Fassett quilts. From left to right we are Janneke, Linda, Lee, and Terri.

Here I am sitting at my space working on the Farmer’s Wife Quilt.

I brought some Kona Hunter Green fabric to cover the table to set off the display of the Farmer’s Wife Quilt blocks that I have completed so far. I brought 25 blocks with me. I actually left 12 blocks at home, so I guess that means I have 37 blocks finished now. Even paring down to 25 there was no way that I was going to be able to lay them all out, so I just spread them out a bit and encouraged people to pick them up to examine them.

I answered a lot of questions about English Paper Piecing and talked about how I was going to be laying out and sashing my blocks.

In addition to the Farmer’s Wife Quilt blocks I also brought some traditional hexagon paper piecing work I had done when I first started up quilting again a couple of years ago.

Here are the Farmer’s Wife blocks I brought with me:

We demonstrated from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM and we had a fantastic time. We all agreed that the time simply flew by. I looked at my watch at about quarter to three and simply could not believe that we were almost finished. I could have stayed another two hours easily. With all the talking we did none of us got much work accomplished, but that wasn’t the goal of the demo. The goal was to engage the visitors, and I think we were a hit in that respect. A lot of people stopped by to talk with us, and seemed to be very interested in what we were doing. I remembered to bring my business cards with me and encouraged people to take a card and visit my blog. One lady even asked if I was available to speak at guild meetings. I was surprised and flattered. Who am I kidding, I was thrilled. When she asked I said, “Oh, I never thought of that. I suppose I could talk about paper piecing and do a trunk show.” However, I don’t feel worthy of that. I’ve got to work on my feelings of self worth. I am reading “The Artist’s Way” so that should help.

Interestingly enough, after a cursory glance at what we were doing one of the visitors said, I thought you were a modern quilt guild. And I said, “They wouldn’t let us bring machines.” With that said she understood. I also pointed out that I considered my blocks modern because they were made strictly of solids.

One last thought… Why is it that the longer I quilt the more I look like my grandmother? In the pictures below I am 62 and she is 19.

 

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 have had a short vacation away from assigned blocks on The Farmer’s Wife Quilt. As much as I promised that I would get ahead, I barely kept pace. I put off the two blocks assigned a couple weeks ago, and took my good old time finishing them this week.

#9 Autumn

Autumn uses the Kona Solids:
Pansy, Peridot, and Celery

When I first looked at Autumn I did not like her at all. I knew that I had to change her to suit myself. Quite frankly, I found her boring. I decided to start piecing her from the center. After finishing the square with the four Pansy colored triangles in the corners I knew that I wanted to make the outer rectangles with Celery rather than Pansy. This way the small inner rectangles would not be so isolated in the block. This would also fix my biggest complaint about Autumn. She was boring because she used the same color for three separate contiguous areas of the block. BORING! When the large outer rectangles were no longer assigned to Pansy that problem was immediately solved.

Now Autumn is one of my favorite blocks. Even though the little Pansy triangles are the same color and contiguous with the larger Pansy triangles they are more interesting to me now as they peak out from the center square.

 

#86 Priscilla

Priscilla uses the Kona Solids:
Morning Glory and Pansy

The interesting thing about Priscilla is that English Paper Piecing allowed me to make her with fewer pieces than called for in the design. I was able to combine a few pieces that in the original design were the same color, but composed of multiple pieces.

Next week I should be receiving a new assignment of two or three blocks. Back to the old grind.

I am very late posting my progress this week. I had my blocks finished by Monday and could have posted then, but I was very caught up with reading about the new Weight Watchers Points Plus plan on the Weight Watchers web site and also on various Facebook groups to which I belong having to do with Weight Watchers. I’ve been a member of Weight Watchers for over 40 years, and have had my ups and downs. I even worked for Weight Watchers for six months back in 2006 and 2007. I had planned to make it a second career, but I gave it up when we moved rather than look for a new location to work for Weight Watchers.

I have always been quite open about my weight loss journey and maintained a daily blog over on Spark People for over a year when I lost weight using the Body Media Fit armband, which has since been taken over by Jawbone. In any case, I might choose to blog about the new program and my success at maintenance since I have been under goal now again for a few weeks. The new Points Plus program is the biggest innovation in Weight Watchers in over 50 years. There is a lot to be excited about. Maybe I will write more about that in a later post.

This past week we had two blocks to complete, #55 Malvina, and #22 Cat.

#55 Malvina

Malvina is made with the Kona Solids:
Sweet Pea, Thistle, Wisteria, and Amethyst

Malvina From Behind

There is a story behind the creation of Malvina. I generally use only as many fabrics as the diagram shows in the book when I create my blocks. Malvina was shown in the book with only two fabrics. She was kind of boring in my opinion. I was really happy that I waited to start work on Malvina. Because I waited I was lucky enough to see the work of Tracy Holzer, which caught my eye as I was looking at the Farmer’s Wife Facebook Group feed. I was impressed with her choice of fabrics because they brought forth a star shape that exists in Malvina, but which isn’t apparent if you make her with only two fabrics. Tracy’s work is shown below. The star shape is subtle because there is not a lot of contrast in the value of the green and brown. I like that. I tried to emulate that in my color choices as well.

Malvina as Adapted by Tracy Holzer
Work shown with permission.

What is especially nice in my opinion about being inspired by Tracy’s work is that we struck up a conversation on Facebook about it. She then looked me up through the Gnome Angel Linkup Party. Having found my blog she make a few comments on the blog post previous to this one, and our conversation continued there. This is exactly how a QAL is supposed to work. This is why I participate. I will be looking for Tracy’s blocks in the future and I hope that she will be looking for mine as well.

The second block of the week was #22 Cat.

#22 Cat

Cat is made with the Kona Solids:
Celery, Lime, and Limelight

Cat From Behind

Celery has become a staple choice in my Farmer’s Wife Quilt blocks. I had been wanting to use Lime and Limelight for awhile, but was a little concerned about how bright those colors are. I felt that the small amounts used in this block would play well with the celery. I am hoping to work them into future blocks.

We have one more week of assigned blocks until we get a few weeks off for the holidays. For me that means time to get ahead. Last week I was discussing my progress with a member of my quilt guild who has taken an interest in my Farmer’s Wife posts. I mentioned that I was making it a point to do an extra block every time a block is assigned that I had done ahead. I had gotten five blocks ahead at a recent sewing retreat in November. I told her that I do that so I continue to be five blocks ahead. She jokingly asked me, “What happened to Slow Stitching?” She knows I am a proponent of the Slow Stitching Movement. I replied, “They each take me about six hours to complete, you can’t get much slower than that!” You had to be there.

#10 Ava

Ava was made with the Kona Solids:
Amethyst, Thistle, and Celery.

The week started off with the assignment of Ava. It just so happens that I had completed Ava when I was at the CJMQG Retreat in November. So I started working on another block in her place so I would keep my position ahead of the crowd. I won’t reveal the name of the block until she is assigned. Later in the week Daffodil was assigned.

#26 Daffodil

Daffodil was made with the Kona Solids:
Celery, Pansy, Wisteria, O. D. Green, and Sweet Pea.

Daffodil From Behind

I was lucky enough to see some examples of Daffodil before I started work on her. There were a few wonderful versions of this block that utilized a greater number of fabrics than the prescribed three. Although I had taken a bit of a pledge to remain true to the number of fabrics called for, I decided to break that promise for Daffodil in order to make her a bit more dimensional. I also decided to make the flower purple. I could have used two very yellowish greens such as the Celery pictured here in the background, but I felt that if I was going to not make the flower yellow that I should make it purposefully not yellow, thus the choice to go with violets.

Daffodil is the first block that I have felt compelled to display on point. This block screams to be displayed on point. And while half of the blocks will eventually be positioned on point for the final quilt, they will not be displayed that way unless they scream for it as Daffodil does.

Daffodil was much harder to make than I anticipated. Here are a few process photographs of Daffodil.

Daffodil is one of those blocks with pieces that must be turned backwards before you pin them to the fabric and cut the fabric. If you don’t do the reversal the pieces will not fit together. If you reverse none of them they will fit together, but the image will be backwards, which is actually not a big deal. However, if you start reversing the pieces you must reverse them all.

I came up with the idea of labeling the colors of the pieces, which also served to remind me to reverse them. If I pinned the piece to the fabric and I could still read the color symbol I had failed to reverse the template. I did this at least three times and actually basted the pieces before I discovered my mistake. I had to do those pieces a second time. I am a slow learner apparently.

I am “attending” the Link Up Party over at Gnome Angel.

It is the end of another month of working on the Farmer’s Wife Quilt. Above you will see all of the blocks completed in November excluding those that I worked on ahead of time at the CJMQG retreat a couple weeks ago.

We had three blocks to do this week. Luckily one of them was the simplest block in the book.

#79 Patience

Patience is made with the Kona Solids: Lime, Pea Pod, and Thistle.

Patience From Behind

 

#80 Patricia

Patricia is made with the Kona Solids: Sweet Pea and Tarragon.

Patricia From Behind

#39 Grandma

Grandma is made with the Kona Solids: Cabbage, Celery, and Dahlia.

Grandma From Behind

Process Photo of Grandma

I am linking up to the Farmer’s Wife Link Party over at Gnome Angel.

I am also linking up to the Monday Morning Star Count with Jessica over at Life Under Quilts.