Hexies: A Long Time Coming

Just finished my quilt top of African Wax hexies.  The colors are a little more intense and pure than appear in this photo. I have been gathering materials, cutting out hexies and sewing for most of a year now.  I like a generous quilt so this quilt top is a little larger than a king size is usually but this one is for a queen bed.  I hope to find someone with a long arm to quilt the layers for me.

Ocean Chevron Quilt

Pictured above is my middle son's quilt.  This has been the hardest quilt to make, not just because of all of the extra sewing of the triangular pieces, but all of the little obstacles that have gotten in my way. First off, one of the fabrics I ordered never arrived.  The company replaced the fabric but the long wait delayed my start in layout and sewing.  Finally, I decided to layout the fabric without the last pieces and just track where the missing pieces would go once I got them.  Surprisingly, that worked out.  I sewed all of the strips that did not contain the missing fabric and numbered them so I would know where each strip went.  Once the fabric came and I was able finish sewing the top I took it to a quilt shop who sends it away to longarm quilters to finish.  When I had dropped off the quilt the clerk assured me it would a quick turn around and probably not even take two weeks.  I called at weeks 2 and 3 but the clerk didn't know when the quilt would be in and finally I asked for the quilter's number.  That's when I found out that the quilt was stuck on the machine.  (Why didn't she call me????)  She said the person to fix the machine was on holiday in Durban (across the country) and would not be around for another week.  She thought she could get the quilt to the shop in a week and a half, assuming the machine was fixed.  Yikes!  I told her I was leaving soon and really needed the quilt--I wanted to finish it before my sewing machine was packed away. I was able to pick up the quilt on Friday and finished the binding this weekend.

Of course I have used some Spoonflower fabrics on this quilt.  My middle child had fun picking out the fabrics but most importantly to him we found a fabric with Axolotls, an endangered Mexican amphibian and his favorite animal.  With the Axolotls we found our theme and it was not hard for him to choose his other fabrics.  I also noticed I had an incredible amount of watery fabric in my own stash so I only had to supplement the fabric selection with a few darker colors.
The fabrics available on Spoonflower are labeled:  A. Squids in Space! by caenirminger B. Axolotls 1 by tenderlovingclaire
C. small Bloom of Jellyfish by Plushplay  D. Big Five Dots by Bloomingwyldeiris  E. If By Ocean - Beach Block Coordinate - Octodot Light by TTOZ  F. Deap Sea Alphabet by Maile  G. Under the Sea by Valentinaramos
Laying out the design was fun.  I envisioned the movement of water; the lights and darks that play upon the surface of waves.  The wave action is how I decided to use triangles and the alternating light and dark fabrics.  Only later did I discover I made a kind of Chevron quilt.  I used the end pieces of the strips I sewed to make the binding, which I had to supplement with some extra triangles of fabric.    
  
This will be my last quilt for a while.  It has been fun and interesting and I am sure I will be quilting again in the future.

Binding, the First Time

Woohoo, the quilt is finished at last (OK, with the exception of a few threads to clip and the embroidered dedication)!  I have layed it out on my bed because my son's is too hard to photograph.  The most intimidating part of this process for me was the binding.  I have placed some kind of 'binding' around my art quilts before, however, I invented my technique up as I went along.  I did not want to ruin my son's quilt after sooo much work, so I decided to sew an official binding and so looked into a couple techniques. 

The first one I explored I sewed on this practice quilt my little girl's doll.  (This doll belonged to my sister when she was a little girl.) I tried to follow the Missouri Quilt Company's binding instructions, changing 1/4 inch seam to 1/2 inch, but frankly I was too impatient to hand sew the back and figured there was no way I would hand sew my son's giant quilt.  And look at those corner--sheesh.  I'm not too happy with how it turned out but at least it is just a doll quilt--not too much at stake here.

I ended up using a suggestion from Inge, the woman who's longarm quilted my son's quilt together.  The binding is made from 3 inch strips of my chosen border materials (two different fabrics.)  I ironed the material in half length wise, then opened it up and folded the sides toward the middle leaving a small gap.  I then ironed the folds down, I closed the folds and ironed the fabric down the middle again.  I then capped that folded fabric over the edge of the quilt and could sew both sides of the binding on in one go.  The other piece of valuable advice I received from Inge was to sew the binding beginning along the side rather than at one of the corners.  That certainly made piecing the binding tails together easier.  I used Missouri Quilt Company's corner technique. 
I have promised each of my children a quilt.  An have begun working on my daughter's already.  I am sewing them in order who's birthday is coming next.