More about Hexagreens and the reveal

Yesterday I shared some pictures of parts of my quilt Hexagreens. I have a fabric that I just love and I have used it to make Hexagreens, Mom's Flower Bed and Flora and Fauna, Parts of the Garden. 

In the case of Hexagreens and Mom's Flower Bed the diamonds were fussy cut, some using templates and others were cut from strips of fabric that I cut parallel to the selvage. This method produces oodles of patches in no time flat. The thing is that when you do it from strips you have no idea how the block will turn out! You can read about how I cut my diamonds from strips here. To start you need a fabric with lots of action! This is the fabric I used. 

All of the floral print stars were cut from this fabric. Depending on how the diamonds were arranged the block could look very different. All of the stars in the quilt below were from the fabric above using a strip method of cutting diamonds.

Close up of Mom's Flower Bed, 2011

By placing the green print at the point in the middle a really nice effect was created. 

Sometimes the diamonds just don't work together so instead I would use them to surround the star. In creates another interesting effect.

This is the centre medallion in Hexagreens. The bright green was used here and also in the border. It was also used for the centres of the stars that you can see in the upper right and left corners as well as the lower right and left corners. Repeating the green fabric helps to pull the quilt together and although it is scrappy and multicoloured it reads as a green quilt.

Close-up medallion in Hexagreens

I also repeated some of the stars. The following star was made in multiples. I used it around the medallion and I also used it in the border. I used a brown fabric for the background but ran short so I added a second brown print and made sure that it was used in many of the stars so that it would just blend in! Sometimes it is a good thing to run out of fabric. By adding a second or third similar fabric it can add depth and dimension to a quilt! 

While this medallion looks complicated it is actually made of large hexagons. I used my foundation paper pieced English paper piecing method to create all of the stars with the needle points! Colour placement was also a factor. Let me show you a close-up of how some of the components were constructed. 

So what does the whole quilt look like? It looks just like this!

Hexagreens by Karen H

Did I have a design for this quilt? No! I started by making the large brown and orange star in the middle. Once it was done I thought about what could come next and I decided on the first round of little stars. The next round was fussy cut stars from the fabric at the beginning of this post. I put the orange stars in the corners and two yellow stars in between them. The quilt developed just like that. Each time I finished something I would think what next! It was a fun quilt to make although it did present a few challenges! Maybe one day I'll write a pattern for this quilt! For now I have plenty to do so it will be a job for a future date!

That's it for now. I want to get Bab's quilt finished so I can get back to 81 The Giant Monstrosity! Until I post again, happy sewing!
Karen H