New Year's Stitching - My Fussy Cutting Sew Along Quilt Top!!

This summer, I showed you my design for this hexagonal center medallion quilt that would absorb the 52 hexie flowers I have been making as part of the #fussycuttingsewalong on Instagram.

That pair of pheasants in the center is one my favorite blocks from the weekly sewalong.

I have been admiring and collecting photos of hexagonal medallion quilts for several years. The growing stack of blocks inspired me to design my own medallion layout as their final resting place.

 I also realized that the stack of  twenty-some Morris Hexathon blocks from 2016 were the same size and could be blended in with the current blocks.

Yea!!!  Bigger quilt faster and one less UFO!!

I used the Set-In Piecing Simplified technique (downloadable PDF teaching guide available HERE in my Etsy Shop) to piece all the blocks and during the fall, this medallion center was my "sew-off" while I chain-pieced through the weekly blocks.

I broke it down into several units that could be "mass produced" and then added each to the central motif.

The setting fabric I selected builds a soft frame around the entire piece. 

I made it a bit larger than needed so I could trim to make it fit -- none of my "math" ideas were going to work so took the easy way!!

In the end, I trimmed 1/2" off each side for a perfect fit.  

Because I made sure that the outside edges of the medallion were straight of grain on all sides, there wasn't any stretching!!

Last week, I pieced the final hexie flower and finished piecing some "half flowers" for the ends of some of the rows.

For the past two days, I have been shut up in my studio setting everything together and it looks terrific!!  Since I've been adding white background diamonds to each hexie flower as I made them, it was easy to prepare them for setting with the simple addition of an equilateral (60 degree) triangle!

I used Marti Michell's Set G*** to cut all my hexagons for a finished 3" block.

That meant, cutting with the equilateral triangle ruler would yield the correct size setting triangles

I needed a few half-triangles (easy to cut with Marti's tool) and with two layers of fabric, wrong sides together, cutting "rights" and "lefts" was effortless.  Marti's tool features point trimming as you can see below and taking the time to make those trims set me up for easy and perfect matching! 

Most of the blocks have been on the design wall for weeks -- there has been lots of moving around and shifting to achieve a "spontaneous" balance.  The Morris Hexathon blocks didn't work (to my eye) just mixed in randomly so they are divided into diagonal rows in each corner.  There were also a few six-pointed stars from teaching demos that are positioned evenly around the central medallion.  All the hexie flower blocks were allowed to stay where I first plopped them unless there two very similar ones together - such as same color, same fussy cutting style, etc. 

 

All the hexagon blocks, except for those at the ends of the rows, were prepared by adding triangles. 

Each triangle has one straight of grain edge and I always keep that edge horizontal across a quilt.

If my block piecing is accurate, the triangle will match the corners of the hexagon block perfectly!!

Ready to piece a row!!

It goes fast as there are only straight seams from this point forward!!

Here's a trick I discovered a couple years ago to match angled seams when working with diamonds.

If you have consistent seam depth, when you layer the two units right sides together, match the end of the previous seam to the corner of the diamond.  

Here, I'm sliding the corner of the diamond (top layer) over to match the end of the seam on the lower layer.

 It's faster and much less frustrating than searching for the perfect spot with "pin poking". The intersection of the diagonal seams will be accurate 95% of the time -- no matter the actual depth of your seam allowance and I don't pin!!

Try it next time you do this!

To maintain straight seams only construction throughout the quilt top, I pieced the center of the quilt in sections rather than long rows.  Two of these large triangle units set on opposite sides of the center medallion were the key!

Once those were added to the center medallion, I made the left and right units by working in short rows.  

This is the result of two pleasant afternoons in the studio!!

I have left it in 3 sections at this point while I think about my quilting approach.

Do I machine quilt or hand quilt or some of both?

If I machine quilt, will I work in sections which is easier for me to manage and I'll do a better job. 

So for a few days, I'll enjoy this view from my machine while I fiddle with some neglected UFO.

The questions will answer themselves and I'd like to make this piece one of my 2019 finishes!!

If you have a question about my approach to setting this quilt together, please leave a comment below and I'll answer it in the comments so everyone learns from it, too!

So here's to a productive start to 2019!!

Another year, more fun!!

Mary

***EDIT April 2025

Marti Michel closed her business in late in 2024 and while some shops may still have a stock of her templates, you can also find them on Ebay and Etsy.  

Staying in a Groove?

August has been such a "come and go" month for me that it's been a challenge to stay in my typical productive stitching groove.  Thank goodness for the portability and short seams of working with hexies and having an engaging knitting project going!!

I've been continuing to strive for making a weekly hexie flower as part of Naomi Clarke's (@naomialicec) #fussycuttingsewalong on Instagram.  This month's theme has been "travel" and it's been a tough one for me since I'm working with traditional reproduction prints for this project.

Upper left is a favorite travel destination -- formal gardens of any sort represented by the centered floral motifs.

Upper right is a "fail" as we were supposed to be plucking out a section of a travel motif and reassembling it in such a way to create a design -- after over a week of going through that (large) box of fabric, I caved and settled for "travel" -- it's the hare riding on the tortoise's back!

The lower one is cut from a map of Paris that I picked up several years ago and the center motif is Notre Dame -- my gosh, it's upside down in this picture?!?  It's another of those hexie flowers that recreates the fabric as printed.  When I visited Paris in 1968,  we stayed near Notre Dame so perhaps the street is on this map?

There is a master plan for all these motifs which is keeping me motivated!!

I am adding 1" diamonds to make each into 3" hexagons and after much searching (first in my stash and then via shopping), I found this soft green toile style print for the alternating setting triangles.

Back in July, I shared a glimpse of a large motif that will be the center of this plan!

I chose one of my favorite hexie motifs for the center and have been building up the large star gradually.  

Since I'm machine-piecing this quilt top using the "Set-In Piecing Simplified" technique which I teach, I made the six point sections as "leaders and enders" while working on other projects or just when I need to unwind with some repetitive stitching.

(You can purchase my PDF teaching guide for chain piecing through y-seams in my ETSY shop, Mary Huey Quilts.)

The sections are all labeled and I'm almost done attaching them to the center.  

Once that is done, I'll be able to figure out (for sure) how much background to add so that the finished star fits into my setting plan.  I've worked it out on paper, but am doubting my theory a bit . . . . . 

@sewfoxymama began her 2018 edition of #100hexies100days on Instagram three weeks ago.

She sets a weekly theme and everyone makes one hexie a day to reflect that theme.

This set is from the "about you" week.

I bird (a lot), my favorite color is yellow, and I use more green in my piecing than any other color.

The week two theme was "summer" -- growing flowers and berries, enjoying insects, and feeding the hummingbirds!

The week three theme was "fantasy" and it stumped me at first.  Most are using unicorns and fairies and gnomes but since I'm stash-focused in my projects, I chose frogs in jaunty hats and cats that wear monocles and water the garden.

When the sew-along wraps up in early December, I should have enough 1 1/4" hexies to make another Nundle Dilly-bag, one of Brigitte Giblin's patterns that I've made before.

This week's theme is "cute critters" -- I hope I have a few more in my stash!

My  #crownwoolsmkal wrap is almost finished!!  I'm using up sock yarn leftovers -- think there are 9 different skeins.  It's almost 6 feet long at this point and I've enjoyed exploring new-to-me stitch combinations.  As I said last week when I posted this picture to my Instagram feed, I might look like I'm wrapped up in a lot of socks, but it's pretty and unique!

And the goal of reducing that stash has been reached -- now the remaining sock yarn fits in the (smallish) box with the lid closed!!

The neighbor children went back to school last week and I'm striving to hold onto the last days of summer.  There's a fresh basket of peaches on the kitchen shelf which hopefully will yield another pie this week.  Since I won't have the help of #tidysister on the left (she made the crust) and #funsister on the right (she helped peel), it will only be one pie and perhaps not home made crust?!?

Time to stitch!!

Mary