Friday, April 5, 2013

Hexagon quilt and lesson learned!

Might as well faced I I’m addicted to hexagons (and nine patches)! I’ve made countless hexagon quilts and I have one in particular that I wanted to show you today. I didn’t have any pictures so I went to pull it this morning and it wasn’t where it belonged. I looked everywhere. The best I could remember was that I had pulled a stack of quilts and wall hangings to show to some friends. I was sure I put them back where they belonged and all of them were there but the one I wanted. What was going to be a productive day instead turned into a day of tearing the joint apart looking for this quilt. And finally I found it….with the Christmas decorations. Clearly I was busy and just shoved it somewhere to get it out of the way! Lesson learned? Next time I pull a quilt I will put it back where it belongs when I am finished! Well at least that’s the plan! And here it is!


This quilt is titled “There’s a snail in Grandma’s flower garden” and it measures 30" x 37". My Mom is a grandmother and we call her GM or G-Ma for short. Mom is a quilter and an avid gardener; her garden is spectacular. It’s loaded with native wildflowers, traditional English garden flowers and species plants and trees. She has an ongoing battle with snails that feed on her beloved plants. She searches them out with a laser-like focus and squashes or drowns them. I feel for the snails who are only doing what they were made to do so when I find a snail in her garden I save it by putting it where she won’t find it! This quilt is based upon hexagon which is often made into the block “grandmother’s flower garden”. I developed a technique for piecing hexagons to create interesting designs. Some of these designs are used in this quilt. The border is entirely hand embroidered with a variety of plants and insects and one lonely snail that has so far escaped G-Ma’s notice. Run snail, run before G-Ma finds you! And here are a few close-ups of my work.








The Quilting Gallery runs a weekly show and share. Next week the theme is hexagons so I might just submit this one. This week's theme is "Spring" and I submitted Rosy Outlook which I blogged about earlier this week. Feel free to scoot on over to Quilting Gallery and take a look at all of the beautiful entries and vote this weekend for the ones that you like the best. Hopefully mine is one of them! You can also see a close-up of Rosy Outlook in my Gallery.

And I've added pages to my blog. Take a look at Block of the Month and stay tuned for Tips and Tutorials. There might even be a new Mystery Quilt page if there's interest. Let me know what you think!

Until my next post, happy sewing!
Karen H



13 comments:

  1. I just voted for this at the Quilting Gallery. It's so amazing! I'm gonna follow you, because I think what you do is just wow!

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  2. This is stunning! I love the combination of applique, patchwork and embroidery.... Beautiful, just beautiful!

    Thank you for sharing x

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    1. Thanks! It was a fun quilt to make and it incorporates techiques I love!

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    1. Thank you Grit! I got a little carried away with the embroidery but I was having so much fun doing it!

      Karen

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  4. This is just beautiful - the border is so amazing. A real work of art.

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    1. Thank you Marie! I got so much enjoyment making this one. It is up there as one of my favourites!

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  5. This might be my favorite quilt ever! Made with not just talent, but love for G-Ma and her snails as well.......grin.

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  6. This is a gorgeous quilt, Karen! I am so pleased to have found you in the last Blog Hop from the Quilting Gallery. I look forward to seeing more as you link to Hexie Friday. Thanks!

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  7. Beautiful Karen! I love the combination of quilting and embroidery.

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