Hexies Galore - Grandma's Flower Garden quilt

My "hexie habit" began March 6th, when I folded my first 2 x 2 inch square around a die-cut, paper hexagon shape, and basted it in place - the first of about 3,500 hexies that will eventually become a single-bed-sized quilt, entirely hand-sewn.

Am I crazy? Well, it's entirely possible. It all started because my husband likes to watch TV and movies (DVDs)... a lot! I could easily not even own a TV, much less watch it. He likes me to watch with him, keep him company, somebody with whom to discuss whatever he's watching. Ooops.... big conflict of interests here!  In order to oblige him, I have to be doing something with my hands, something simple enough that I can still devote some of my attention to the box. Turns out hexies are the PERFECT solution! They also work well for when we take the ferry off island, parked in the waiting line or on the ship.

In five months, I have:

1. cut 3,500+ two-inch squares of fabric
2. basted 3,500+ hexies, which are 3/4 inch on a side (pictures on this post)
3. hand-sewn 213 single-ring flowers 
4. hand-sewn a pathway ring of white hexies around 78 of the single-ring flowers

Still waaaaaaay more to do - many more hours of movies, documentaries, etc. with my husband. I reckon I've spent a little over 400 hours on it so far - that's TEN 40-hour work weeks in 5 months. This has actually been fun. Each of the 213 flowers is a different fabric, so there's always something a little new.

Thought you might like to see the steps for making the single ring flowers...

Arrange petal hexies in pleasing way around center.

Put one petal face-to-face with the center, and whip-stitch them together. I generally take about 12-13 stitches per 3/4" side.

Join and stitch the first and second petal together along the side seam. Knot at the end of each side.

After stitching the side seam and knotting, slip the needle under the folded flap of the side to return to the center hexie.

Double knot the center hexie to the second petal. Then whip stitch them together. The first petal will have to be folded a bit.

Continue adding petals around the center. This is the side seam between the 5th and last petal. I double knot at the end of each side seam.

Whip stitch the last petal to the center.

To complete the last side seam, the entire flower must be folded as shown above.

The back side of the completed flower looks like this. Click on any of the pictures to see detail of stitching. The paper pieces and basting stitches stay in the hexies until the entire quilt top is whip-stitched together. When the top is complete, it is ironed on the back side; the basting stitches and paper pieces are then removed, and the quilt sandwich is made.

Stack of 50 hexie flowers! Only 163 to go....

Here's a stack of 50. Altogether, I made 213 of them, all with different prints.

The next step is sewing the white "pathway" around half of the flowers. (The others get green print hexies to represent leaves.) That takes about 1 hour per flower.

Here are the first 50 of them - 67 to go.

After finishing the white rings, I'll start sewing them together in groups of 5 flowers with green hexie leaves between them. I'll post pictures and another progress report after I've done a few.

Grandma's Flower Garden Quilt ~ I'm Doin' It!!!

I always admire hand-pieced, hand-quilted Grandmother's Flower Garden quilts when I see them in museums. They make me happy... VERY happy!!! Circles of hexagons, flowers, bright pastel colors, sweet/cute little prints with animals, children and posies... what's not to like?!

My quilting friend, Christy, who has a stash of 1930's reproduction fabrics, recently began basting scraps of fabric onto paper pieces, 3/4 inch hexagons. Her plan is to make a small, wall-hanging quilt. As I've watched her stitch, so portable, so satisfyingly mindless, I've begun to develop project envy.

These fabrics are new... reproductions of designs/colors from the 1930's

I started a 30's reproduction quilt more than a year ago, one based on a historic quilt with 25-patch blocks. Oddly, I've never taken any pictures of it... Or if I have, I can't find them. But a few of the fabrics are shown above. I'm hand quilting it, slooooooowly making progress. However, it's NOT portable. A large quilt, it needs a lot of table space to work on it. It also requires really good lighting, because I'm quilting an intricate design with white thread on white fabric for the sashing and borders.

My husband likes to watch TV... and likes me to join him in that pastime for several hours each day. Watching TV, even good movies, is waaaay down, near the bottom, on the list of things I like to do. So the only way I can comfortably sit with him is when I can do handwork at the same time. Knitting works pretty well; I can do simple patterns with only dim lighting. But, having gone through a 2-year knitting spree, I'm knitted-out. What to do???

You guessed it! Grandma's flower garden quilt, here we go! Perfectly portable. Works for TV, waiting in line for the ferry, ferry rides, and quilt gatherings. And... I get to use the scraps from my other 30's reproduction quilt! Whooo-hoooo!

Step 1: Go to Paper Pieces, and buy die-cut, 3/4" hexagon paper pieces. I'm starting with a bag of 1,500 pieces, although I'll need at least one more bag to make a bed-sized quilt. The cost is $20/750 pcs. or $35/1,500 pcs.

Step 2: Get out fabric stash and cut 2" strips. Cut these into 2" squares. Using one of the paper pieces as a guide, snip the corners off the squares to make roughly hexagon-shaped fabric pieces. For my arrangement, it takes 6 pieces of print fabric and 1 piece of solid fabric to make one flower.

Step 3: Pin a fabric hex to a paper hex.

Step 4: Turn the fabric seam allowance around the edges of the paper piece and baste in place. Knots should be on the right side.

Step 5: Repeat steps 1-4 to make a bunch of fabric hexagons. Play with the arrangement of them to make a pleasing design. This is my plan, so far. There will be a white pathway around some of the flowers, other will have green print "leaves." What do you think of this arrangement? It's not the most familiar style. But it would not require quite so many boring white hexagons.

Step 6: Whip stitch the hexagons together by hand.

Step 7: Remove the basting stitches and paper pieces.

Step 8: Figure out how to deal with the uneven (hex shaped) edges. Layer the top, batting and backing.

Step 9: Hand quilt.

Obviously, I haven't given much thought to steps 6-9 yet. I have much TV to watch while making more than 3,000 fabric hexies before contemplating the finishing steps, although I will start whip-stitching the flowers together to give a little variety to my handwork.

Help... I NEED MORE VARIETY OF FABRICS!

Do you have scraps of 30's reproduction fabrics in your stash? I need pieces that are at least 2x12" or 4x6 inches... except for the green background fabrics... for greens I only need 2x8 or 4x4 inches. I'd be happy to trade a few bags of glass rings for some scraps! Email me at robin[at]robinatkins[dot]com.

Want to see more examples of Grandma's Flower Garden quilts? Check out this link to Google images!