My Next WIP

Back when I finished “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” I distinctly remember saying something about being intrigued by the hexagonal piecing, but not being interested in doing a whole quilt’s worth of it… Ha! Famous last words!

A bit of background on this project: I love to have something I can work on when I’m away from my sewing machine, whether it be road trips or soccer practice or simply because my sewing room in under construction. I’ve been giving crochet a try – fun but my wrist gets tired – and I’ll keep working on that sometimes. Well, quilting is still my first love, so when I stumbled on this idea, I just went for it. Last month, my family & I were all in Tennessee for Polishing the Pulpit. As is my habit, I had to be sure to stop in and visit a few quilt shops in the area. The first is always The Cherry Pit in downtown Sevierville (got a cute pattern there!), but another fave is Mountain Stitches in the arts & crafts village in Gatlinburg. In there I found pre-cut hexagons for English Paper Piecing and some 1800’s repro charm squares. Ever since I did my most recent Cabbage Rose BOM, I’ve been itching to make another 1800’s era quilt, so I figured, why not? Try something new; have a new handwork project; maybe end up with something really cool when it’s all done. The sweet little lady at Mountain Stitches was so excited about my plan that she even gifted me with a couple of needles and a length of thread off her machine so I could get started before I got home! So here it is:

So much for avoiding hexagons! My tentative plan is to make a queen-size scrappy hexagon quilt entirely by hand. I’m thinking it will take me at least 6 months to piece & hmmm… 2 1/2 years to quilt?? We shall see. I may chicken out when it comes to hand quilting the thing. Jack loves it so far. Can’t you just picture this on a wrought-iron bed with lace-edged pillows? And maybe a cream-colored crochet throw across the foot?

I think I have about 35 different fabrics going, with the intent of having it look like a quilt someone might have made in the 1800’s using scraps of whatever fabrics they had leftover from any and all projects. Hey, if anyone has a charm sized piece or two of a Civil War era reproduction, I’d love to include it in the quilt!