Butterscotch Ripple Quilt and Yoga in the Garden

I admit I am addicted to hexagons - just can't get enough of them. Every time I see a hexagon quilt I want to make it! Even the simplest of hexagon quilts is alluring! I read a post by Kath of Hillside House. She has a chair named Peggy and Peggy had a simple hexagon quilt on her back. I think it looks quite elegant and I want one just like it!  Or check out this sweet little Harriet cushion that is embellished with hexagons. It was made by Natalie of Sewing Room Secrets! I need one of those cushions too!

There was another hexagon quilt that I came across a couple of years ago while I was zipping around the internet and you guessed it! I wanted one! All I found was a picture of an unfinished quilt top. Large prints were framed with a diamond of hexagons. I loved the idea so I made myself a quilt top. After the top was finished I discovered that the original quilt was made by Brigitte Giblin and that she had just published a book titled Feathering the Nest with Vintage Inspired Quilts. There are loads of hexagon ideas in the book and the photography is so pretty that I couldn't resist....I bought the book!

This is the hexagon quilt I fell in love with!

The basic shape was a diamond of hexagons framing a large print and there were little diamond and triangle fillers. It was simply a matter of selecting the size of hexagon I wanted to use and then deconstruct the hexagon to create the diamonds and triangles. I wrote about how to do this here.

My version of the quilt

I chose to work with a hexagon that was just over 1". Each diamond is one third of the hexagon and each triangle is on half of the diamond. I used a light buttery-toffee colour for the diamonds and tiny triangles throughout the quilt.

The original quilt doesn't have a border but I usually add a couple of borders to my quilts and had done so with my quilt before I found the book. The inner border is a repeat of the buttery-toffee fabric I used for the diamonds and triangles and the outer border is a butterscotch stripe fabric with curvy ribbons; I knew it would be perfect and I just had enough fabric to border the quilt. Directional prints such as stripes can add pizzazz to a quilt. I wrote about the use of these prints here.

I call my quilt Butterscotch Ripple for two reasons: the colour of the outer border reminds me of butterscotch but more importantly when I pin basted the quilt I realized that the border was not laying flat and there were ripples!!!!  I had to do some reverse sewing to correct the problem!  Normally I would hand applique the quilt top to the border but I had read so much about machine applique that I thought I would give it a go. I had machine appliqued the quilt top to the border with invisible thread and a tiny blanket stitch. It worked very well and was invisible BUT it had to be unpicked because of the ripples. It was a huge pain to remove those invisible stitches! In future I will hand applique because it works just fine for me! And if any reverse sewing is required, it will be easy to do! So I reverse sewed the problem areas but left the basting pins in the quilt. I then made the necessary adjustments to the border and hand stitched it to the quilt top. It is much better now!

The border is separated from the quilt

So here is my quilt Butterscotch Ripple! I took the picture under the arbor this morning and had not yet repinned the border.

I really love the backing fabric which is magnolias on a robin's egg blue. Too pretty for words!

So with the border correction complete, I can now pin baste it. I can't wait to start quilting this one! First step will be to stitch in the ditch in every single seam and then the fun will begin although as usual I have no idea as to how I am going to quilt it......yet!

When I was out in the garden photographing this quilt I thought I would take a stroll to see if there was anything interesting. Aren't these colours glorious - yellow sunflower, orange trumpet vine, lilac balsam and little purple something or others! The bees are absolutely delirious with the abundance!

 

This bee kept bumping into me as he went from flower to flower! 

 

This looks like something from the milkweed family

I was enjoying myself with the bees in the balsam when I first heard the unmistakable voices of Turtle Girls. I had forgotten that they were holding a yoga class in the garden today. I wonder if anyone showed up!

 Not a bad turn out from the looks of it - six doing yoga plus Turtle Girls!

And three observers!

They started with some gentle stretches (as always)!

 

And then it was right into downward turtle. But wait, who is that in the background stretching? Do you see him? I don't recognize him but it looks like he is interested in yoga! He does look rather shy so I won't bother him because he seems to be enjoying himself.

 Immediately after downward turtle they started dropping like flies! They were all worn own except for Zebra Fellow!

Looks like everyone took off and left Turtle Girls on their own.

And with that their noses were out of joint so Turtle Girls got up and wandered off into the garden!

I turn back and can't believe my eyes! What do I see?

My quilts!!!! They were using MY quilts as yoga mats! And they had my silk quilt that I told them was not to go out to the garden! Those Girls are going to need a talking to, that's for sure!

Until I post again, be sure to hide your quilts if there are Turtle Girls around and happy sewing!