Like I said in the title - glutton for punishment. Anyhoo, having decided on the size of the pieces, I rallied round looking for thick card and/or thick paper as I knew that the templates were going to get some hammer and would need to last me a while. The laborious task of cutting out the pieces was a trial but something I could do watching TV or in the car on the way to wherever our walk started.I thought that I would make it the same size as the denim one - a little bigger than a single but not as big as a double. I was able to find a piece of suitable wadding at a local market and as there was quite a reasonable dirty mark on the edging of the piece, it was relatively quite cheap - result!
I have made doilies, covers, cushions using hexies before - see previous posts - and only one as big as the one I wanted to make now. ( I am unsure as to the whereabouts of this quilt but have a sneaky feeling we lost it in the various moves when we were flooded out).
As you will know (from previous posts) I am a fabric hoarder and so the search for suitable fabric wasn't hard and didn't take long. I used a piece of squared paper to try out various patterns and finally settled on one I was happy with and used a variety of different fabrics and colours. I love the feel of different textures so I mix cotton fabric with upholstery material with denim and corduroy. I know this is not quite the done thing and takes more work to ensure that edges are secure and won't fray but I think it is well worth it. Whenever I could I made up batches of coloured hexies (for the flowers) and various green hexies for the 'background'.
Anyhoo, once I had a bucket full of hexies, I started by making a long chain of different coloured green fabric hexies to make my outside edge and set the length of the quilt. This was quite a quick process as only one side of the pieces was being joined. The second row was more difficult as I wanted to start bringing in the coloured 'flowers' and needed to work out where the coloured pieces needed to go. DOH! Head slap moment! I realised then that I could be more accurate with this process if I made the flowers up first and added them as I went along adding single green hexies inbetween the flowers to make up the pattern.
I know, I know not the sharpest needle in the box! LOL This process was even better as I could make up batches of coloured hexies, sew them together to make the flowers and then play with them in the design as I went along. The hexie flowers could be made as and when and gave me such a sense of achievement as the single hexie sewing was slow and you couldn't really see the pattern or the project getting on. However, adding full flowers and then single green pieces to bond them together made progress quicker. I started to put hexies together to make a full flower and made up batches of these. I also made up batches of green fabric hexies to make up full green flowers which I could also use to fill the bigger spaces between the coloured ones. Once I had a batch of ten flowers, they were sewn together and placed in a separate 'bucket', when this one was full, I worked out which flower needed to go where and then proceeded to adding them to the quilt.
So, the nights were drawing in, the hockey season was under way and my eldest daughter, Emma, was going to be visiting lots of Universities in the search to find one that ran the course she wanted so lots of Saturday nights to myself and lots of travel and waiting around in which to use to sew hexies. (Right: hexies being sewn whilst waiting at Nottingham University).
Slow going as I was hand sewing and the different fabrics didn't make for easy sewing either! Stiff fingers from the effort of holding a little needle and pulling it through tough fabric - I have fingers like pork sausages!! - and blisters on the ends meant that I couldn't sew as often as I had hoped hence it taking seven months from start to finish, but I think it's pretty spectacular (even though I do say so myself, lol).
So, eventually the front of the quilt was done and a decision needed on how I wanted to finish it. Having made and sewn my own binding on the denim one, I really didn't want to do this again so I trawled the t'internet for alternative ideas and found a method of finishing a hexi piece without having to square off the edge. This meant that I could keep the 'stepped edge' of the pieces in the final quilt - great. Little realising what this would actually involve. Check out http://badskirt.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/tutorial-finishing-you-hexie-quilts.html
The search was then on for something to back the quilt with. I already had the wadding - this had to be cut and pieced as the piece I had wasn't long enough but was too wide. I didn't want to have to change the shape of my finished quilt front so was quite happy to do this. The end result was ok and does not show up on the finished piece.
Fortunately my Aunt came to the rescue when I wasn't able to find some fleece or flannel I liked. She found me a light green, flannel, double, fitted sheet. I opened the seams on the corners and laid out the sheet, the wadding and the quilt front to make sure they were all about the right size. B**ger! Yep, the sheet was too small. Something of a penchant of mine when it comes to sizing quilts! (see First Quilt (proper) part 4).
Once I had calmed down, I relooked at the sheet and worked out that with the first row of green hexies on the back along with a few additional ones in the corners, I could use the sheet. I made up some more templates, added the green edging hexies to the back of the last row of hexies and added flowers to the corners. I then relaid the quilt front, wadding and flannel sheet - Success!The next step was to pin, pin, pin, pin!!!! Again using the lessons learned from the denim quilt with the pins - (First Quilt (proper) part 7) - I used safety pins in the centre to secure the three layers together and began taking out the templates from the edging hexies. I reused the thread to secure these to the flannel sheet. The mammoth job of sewing each hexie to the backing could then begin.
It took the best part of two days to complete. I made sure that the stitches went from the front to the back and caught the edge of the backing hexies but ensuring that the stitch on the front of the quilt was placed 'in the ditch' of the corresponding hexie. Hopefully this has resulted in the stitches being virtually invisible. More blisters and stiff fingers later the quilt was done.
I wasn't fully satisfied that the edging stitches would completely hold the quilt together and so decided that I would, again like the denim one, pick out individual flowers and sew around the outside edge at different points on the quilt. As it is quite heavy, I felt that this would reduce the strain on the stitches on the edging and also pull the quilt together in the centre.
With a full day to myself, I made a pot of coffee, cleared and cleaned my desk, moved everything within a metre radius (this was a feat in itself if you've ever seen my office!!), set up my Castle DVD, and then threaded Lucy (see Introduction post).When the coffee tasted awful and I couldn't sew the quilt !!!!! I should have given up then! It just wasn't happening. I know Lucy can cope with anything I throw at her and this was not as heavy as the denim one but first the needle broke then the thread and the material was being pulled out of whack so I packed up and sulked!
When I felt a little better, I retried, only this time I tried hand sewing the edges. I set myself up (again) and started sewing. Worse!!! Because there are no 'guides' on the plain flannel backing, I couldn't work out the shapes of the hexies. I tried several times pinning the flannel to the front and carefully following the 'ditch' of a hexie - fail! I have now given up on this idea and have folded up the quilt until I feel less frustrated.
I think I will try marking out the shape of a single hexi plotting the corners and feintly drawing a guide line and seeing how that works out. If successful, I will pick out random flowers and some single hexies over the whole quilt. I am feeling more positive about this approach and will, obviously, update my blog with the results. For now, here are photos of the quilt front and back. Check out the edge! ;)
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