Rogue hexagon quilt - complete

Finally, the rogue hexagon quilt is complete. Gone from being a rather scrappy mess found abandoned around the house for the last few months, to the finished article. I love how it all comes together at the end.

I love this quilt, it really has been a labour of love, hand-stitching those hexagons into submission took hours and hours. But it was nice to have an excuse to sew cozy-ed up on the sofa rather than hunched over my machine.

I used my favourite colours and fabrics on this quilt and it's lovely having them all in one place, like a snap shot of M is for make at that time as many are now sold out. I used grey honeycomb dots for the backing and linen blend in flax for the binding. I quilted a bit more than usual, zig-zagging down alternate rows, I can't deny I still find this process really tedious but I was pleased with the result.

Then came the binding, usually my favourite part, but me being me, I managed to incorporate a mistake or 2 here. Despite measuring (I thought) really carefully and adding in plenty of spare in my length of binding, the 2 ends met with a seam allowance of barely 5mm. It was so close, I also managed to time a couple of the seams on the binding with the corners making them bulky and hard to sew. Which was rather frustrating. But the transformation that binding makes to the quilt made is worthwhile. It is so very satisfying.

I almost forgot to mention the words I put on the side of the quilt. I had a few corking mistakes here too. I programmed the phrase in with my daughter which was great fun, she looked up the letters in the manual and I typed them into the machine. I did a test run and we watched mesmerised as the needle did it's work. It all went well so I started on the binding only to realise part way through the first few letters that I had started too close to the raw edge meaning the letters would be eaten up by the seam allowance, so I to start again. The second time went smoothly, but I had put the words on the wrong side so that the text was visible from the front rather than back of the quilt as I intended.

I decided just to go with it as honestly, I just wanted to finish the darn thing and I'd had enough. I used a very similar colour thread to the binding so the text is not that obvious unless you are looking for it, I hoped to minimise future embarrassment to my son. My mum cleverly spotted mistake 3: no date. How on earth did I forget that? Maybe I will try to hand embroider that in later so that I can terrify myself in years to come with how long ago it was that I made this quilt.

I finished hand sewing the last bit of binding whilst watching the Jubilee celebrations on TV. I presented it to my boy and he was overwhelmed with emotion to receive such handcrafted loveliness from his mum more interested in playing in the garden.

It was a busy bank holiday weekend of Jubilee shenanigans like rainy garden parties, but it a quieter moment when back at home, he did spontaneously say 'thank you for my lovely quilt'.  That boy can wrap me round his little finger. The first night he had it on his bed (it has returned to mid-winter weather after a brief, tantalising glimpse of summer) I had to go and release him from it as he had wrapped it round himself like a cocoon and was slowly cooking like a fine leg of lamb.

Look how it coordinates with his toys, he does have toys that are not grey, but I have locked them away so his room looks perfect and ready for a magazine shoot.

Where to next? I am part way through making one of these with this. But whilst it is so freezing, I'm feeling a little uninspired by summer dresses, so here is a hint of where I might go next. I'm thinking this and this.

PS as requested a photo of the back...