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...

The morning after the night before

Non-stop rain (well at least it feels like it) has kept me in the house a lot this week. Apart from first thing when I get ritually soaked taking the kids to school. I do have an umbrella, but despite my finely honed multi-tasking skills, it is pretty much impossible to carry one and be the kid's sherpa. Swimming bags, PE bags, water bottles, crepe paper covered shoe boxes containing seagulls made from stones. There is no space in my hands for an umbrella. So I have become a little obsessed by owning a rain cape that will cover me from head down to the tops of my wellies. Look, I have found one;

rain cape

Look how it covers almost everything that the wellies don't. Perfect. I won't look this glamorous though as in reality I am quite disgusting*.

Stuck in because of the rain I found a rare opportunity for some day time sewing. I am progressing slowly on the rogue hexagon quilt. I settled myself into the sofa with the cat, my other quilt to keep me warm, and dared to turn on the TV. I've never watched daytime TV since I started working at home full time. I'm a little wary it will escalate and before I know it, Jeremy Kyle will be on daily and I won't make it out of my PJ's. (Perhaps my rain cape would hide these on the school run so that I don't end up in the Daily Mail.)

To my joy, I stumbled across an old episode of ER, right from the opening titles. Back in the days where Green was alive, Carter was bumbling, Benton was grumpy and Clooney was the original McDreamy. I have a weakness for medical dramas, especially ER which I still haven't quite forgiven for ending as nothing is nearly as good. So I had a happy hour sewing hexagons and watching/listening to medical stuff I don't really understand. I still have a number of rogue hexagons appearing, I have no idea how or why, but I am keeping a close eye on them and sewing them into submission.

My love of medical dramas is ironic considering I am the most squeamish person ever. Fast forward an hour to find me lying on the doctors table, feet elevated by a kindly nurse as I nearly passed out having a minor blip removed from my head. I used my Frankenstein head to great effect when I got home, scaring the kids and wrangling another hour of sewing infront of the TV. So in all, I have made some good progress on the quilt.

I am aiming to make it as big as my daughter's gathering flowers quilt, it seems fair. I want to finish the top soon as I would like to get started on Hazel when she arrives. I am waiting for this extra wide Moda backing, I think the grey dots will be perfect. I still have most of the fabrics used for this quilt here. But this, this or this would make wonderful additions.

Fast forward to the next morning and my son continues to be fascinated by my Frankenstein head. However I have managed to brush my hair to hide it and he asks me why I have done this, making the suggestion 'Is it to make you look less disgusting*?' Thanks love.

Attack of the rogue hexagons

I've been thinking about making a hexagon quilt for quite some time. I have lots of lovely childhood memories of my mum making them. Last time we visited my parents, my daughter slept under one of those quilts. That might have been the last straw that made me start this quilt with no idea of who it was going to be for.

 It didn't take long for my son to claim this 'honeycomb' quilt for himself. I think perhaps I saw this coming and deliberately avoided any overtly girly prints. It was all going rather swimmingly and I was enjoying picking it up, adding a few hexagons, (after wrestling them off the cat).

When suddenly the rogue hexagons hit. I'm not sure where they came from and it took me a little while to realise, but a number appeared that were about 5mm bigger than the rest. I rather stupidly kept adding them in, presuming it was just a blip but after a while they were just too big to tweak into place. Perhaps because a lot of this quilt has been made in the evenings when the light isn't great and I am a bit tired I kept sewing for longer than I should. When I finally realised that I had added about 6 of these rogue hexagons and they were spoiling the party, I had some very frustrating unpicking to do.

So, naughty hexagons gone, and only good, uniform, well behaved ones left, progress has been better. 

I started off with about 5 colours, planning a nice random pattern. But I realised pretty quickly that you need rather a lot of different patterns to be random, and even then it's hard to avoid 2 dark colours together or too many dots in the same place. So I have ended up with 11 different fabrics in all and as I have cleverly chosen a few that are running low, I really hope I don't run out.

You can find the fabrics I have used here, they include some absolute favourites of mine, and I'll be revisiting a variation of this colour scheme for my triangle quilt.

And if proof were needed that I am becoming overly sentimental as I get older, I have set my daughter to work unpicking the hexagon templates and taking them out. I loved doing this as a child, it's so satisfying turning it from a crinkly, rigid paper quilt to a lovely soft fabric one. I think she enjoys it, but sometimes I think she may be humouring me, bless her.

PS I have just noticed that these colours match my blog colour scheme!