Modern Hexagon Quilt

A Finished Quilt

Hexies are my favorite! I keep coming back to this shape for English paper piecing, and even though the hexagon shape doesn't lend itself to continuous piecing - there's a lot of stop/start sewing - I still love it. Hexies are so versatile, the layout possibilities are endless, and with the right mix of fabric you can have a traditional quilt with a modern feel.

The fabrics used for this quilt (other than the background fabric) were once again pulled from my stash and many are from my loved hoarded Japanese fabrics (by Yuwa Fabrics and Kei Fabrics). The solid background fabric was specifically purchased for this project and it is Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton in Malibu. 

The quilt has been machine quilted (domestic sewing machine) with edge to edge vertical lines, spaced one inch apart. Keeping the stitching lines straight is easier than it looks as there are lots of stitching guide points to ensure that the quilting lines stay nice and straight. I do also use a quilting guide attached to the walking foot, which also helps to keep the lines parallel.

For the back of the quilt I have used one of my very favorite Japanese fabrics by Suzuko Koseki for Yuwa Fabrics. This is such a fun design, and perfectly suited the aesthetic of the quilt. It is a beautiful quality cotton fabric, featuring random items including clothing items, hats, shoes, handbags with contents scattered throughout, and the Eiffel tower. Fashion + Paris.

For the binding I have used the same color solid fabric: Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton in Malibu.

QUILT DETAILS

Modern Hexagon Quilt

Finished quilt measures 52 inches x 60 inches.

Started: September 2021.

Finished: November 2021.

English paper pieced and machine quilted (domestic sewing machine).

Materials Used:

Cotton printed fabrics for the hexagon "flowers" from stash.

Background fabric: Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton in Malibu (approx 3 yards).

Acrylic template: 1 inch hexagon template

(plus 3/8" seam allowance).

Paper Pieces: 1242 hexagon paper pieces

(46 complete hexagon "flowers"

 plus 6 half hexagon "flowers" for the top and

bottom edges of the quilt).

Low loft cotton batting.

This quilt is listed for sale in my Etsy Store.

You will find the listing details here:

MODERN HEXAGON QUILT 

Thank you for stopping by and scrolling through the photos. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions - leave a comment or email me: redpepperquilts@gmail.com.

More soon,

Rita

RELEVANT LINKS:

Red Pepper Quilts Etsy Store

2020 Finished Quilts

2021 Finished Quilts

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COPYRIGHT: Do not copy or use any content or photos from my blog without my written permission. This is original content from www.redpepperquilts.com.

B is for Blues ~ A Hexagon Quilt | Part 3

A Finished Quilt 

Next on my to-do list was to finish this English paper pieced hexagon quilt. I started this quilt top in October 2018 and finished it in December 2018. Since then the quilt top has remained untouched, although not forgotten, as quilting it was put in my mental too hard basket. I am not sure what it was that caused me such anxiety; maybe it was the fact that I had spent so much time fussy cutting the fabrics and English paper piecing the many hexies, or even the mix of fabric bases ~ quilting cotton and cotton/linen blend fabrics. Even though I have never had to unpick my quilting efforts, the worry that I will ruin the quilt with my quilting is still there with every quilt.

Thankfully my concerns were not warranted, and the basting and quilting were completed without a hitch. For this quilt I have again used QuiltLite as batting (a super light-weight batting, more like a loosely woven flannel fabric).

The (edge to edge) vertical quilting lines are evenly spaced across the quilt - 7/8" inch apart, which is the same as the sides of the hexagon, thereby using the hexagons as a stitching guide. It is a slow and steady process, although once the foundation lines are in place - starting with every second line - and most basting pins have been removed,  I do pick up the pace.

Consistent with my 2020 commitment to using fabric from stash, for the back of the quilt I have used yardage by Cotton + Steel - Starry in Black from the Printshop collection by Alexia Abegg and by Heather Ross - Small Roses in Yellow from the Tiger Lily collection. And for the quilt binding I have used a narrow blue/white stripe fabric ...

QUILT DETAILS
B is for Blues ~ A Hexagon Quilt
The finished quilt measures 55 inches x 67 inches.
Started: October 2018
Finished: August 2020

 Click on any image for a larger view. 

English Paper Pieced.

108 Blue/Green/Grey Hexagon Flowers.

88 White Hexie Flowers with (Black Centers).

Hexagon size: 7/8" SIDES.

Total Hexagons: 1861

Fabrics Used:

Quilting Cotton

(Many of the floral fabrics are by Japanese designer

Suzuko Koseki for Yuwa Fabrics).

Kona Cotton in White (Robert Kaufman)

Melange Yarn Dyed (Chambray - Cotton) in Natural by Lecien

TOOLS AND NOTIONS
 7/8 Inch Hexagon Papers (1861 hexagons)
7/8 Inch Hexagon Template with 3/8" seam allowance.
Water Soluble Basting Glue - Sewline.
Straw Needles - Size 11.
The Bottom Line 60wt thread by Superior Threads
in white (621), cream (655), and beige (652).

Machine quilted on a domestic sewing machine.

More photos and detail of this quilt in progress can be found here:

B is for Blues ~ A Hexagon Quilt | Part 1

B is for Blues ~ A Hexagon Quilt | Part 2

I am not selling my quilts at the moment but will make them available again when domestic and international shipping settles into a reliable new normal. Quilts will then be listed in my Etsy Store. 

As always, thank you so much for stopping by and scrolling through the many photos.

Rita

RELEVANT LINKS:
More RPQ English Paper Pieced Quilts:
Daisy Chain Quilt (November 2016)
A Floral Hexagon Quilt (September 2017)
Scrappy Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt (September 2018)
Warm Hearted Quilt (May 2020)

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COPYRIGHT: Do not copy or use any content or photos from my blog without my written permission. This is original content from www.redpepperquilts.com.

Hand Pieced Kansas Dugout Quilt

A Finished Quilt

Finally an update! March 2020 came along and everything changed and this new "normal" is difficult to come to terms with for everyone. I know that here in Australia we are in a very fortunate position with relatively few Corona Virus cases, a health care system that has had a chance to prepare, and now a gradual easing out of restrictions. We are so very aware of how lucky we are and I am practising daily to be that glass half full kind of person.

I have been home. My family have been at home! I have worked at home for the last 10 years, so staying home has not been difficult for me. Having to share my "work" space with my family however has proven to be refreshing! It may even be that my sew-jo has returned. I have stitched, especially in the evenings, and have several finished quilts to share with you. Taking photos is still a huge stumbling block in updating my blog, but yesterday was a good photo day.

This is my finished Kansas Dugout Quilt predominantly made with fabrics from my Japanese fabric stash. The fabric pieces for this quilt were cut at the same time as the fabric pieces for my Japanese Stash Buster Quilt - way back in November 2019. It's not often that I plan ahead and cut fabric for multiple quilts at the same time. The quilt top was hand pieced (running stitch). The last stitch was completed on Christmas Eve 2019. (The next day I started hand piecing my Trip Around the World Quilt).

This quilt is pieced in blocks as pictured above, then blocks are joined into rows by adding additional joining squares. I pieced 120 such individual blocks, then pieced blocks together into rows, and then joined rows. I have previously machine pieced several Kansas Dugout Quilts and have made available a step by step tutorial: here. I hand pieced this quilt rather than machine pieced it for no other reason than the joy of stitching with needle in hand. 

The quilt has been machine quilted with straight edge to edge lines of stitching. Nothing fancy. And for the back of the quilt I have used a hoarded piece of fabric from the Lighhearted collection by Ayumi Mills for Kokka Fabrics (2014) - super fancy - and very satisfying to sew from stash.

Batting. I have again used QuiltLite batting to layer this quilt. Quiltlite is a woven cotton fabric similar to a loosely woven flannel fabric as pictured above; it offers the presence of batting without adding bulk or loft. I have had lots of questions about this batting, especially from overseas quilters, and unfortunately I too cannot find it available online other than here in Australia. Most of my local fabric/patchwork stores carry it where it is known as QuiltLite.

QUILT DETAILS

Hand Pieced Kansas Dugout Quilt.

Finished quilt measures 50 inches x 61 inches.

120 Kansas Dugout Quilt Blocks

Started: November 2019.

Quilt Top Finished: 25 December 2019.

Finished Quilt: March 2020.

Hand Pieced.

Fabrics:

Fabrics from my Japanese fabric stash collated for over more

than a decade, including many

designs by Suzuko Koseki for Yuwa Fabrics.
Fabric for joining squares: Add It Up (Basics) by Cotton + Steel.

Notions:

Acrylic template for cutting fabrics:

1 ½ inch Honeycomb with ¼ inch seam allowance.

 2" fabric squares were cut using a rotary cutter and ruler.

Once cut, all fabric pieces were marked with a ¼ inch seam allowance.

I use a mechanical pencil with a 2B 0.7mm lead

for ease of marking a line on the fabric.

Jeana Kimball's Foxglove Cottage -Sharps Needle - size 10.

Aurfil 50wt thread (the orange spool) for hand piecing.

I am not selling my quilts at the moment but will make them available again when domestic and international shipping settles into a reliable new normal.

As always, thank you so much for stopping by! Another quilty update next week - the photos are ready!

Rita

RELEVANT LINKS:

Kansas Dugout Block Machine Piecing Tutorial and Templates

Kansas Dugout - Gardenvale Quilt 2015

Kansas Dugout Quilt 2014

Kansas Dugout Quilt 2011 - this one is still a quilt top! Oops.

Lila's Quilt 2007 - one of my very early quilts.

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COPYRIGHT: Do not copy or use any content or photos from my blog without my written permission. This is original content from www.redpepperquilts.com.

A Japanese Stash Buster Quilt

A Catalog of my Japanese fabric stash!

I made a quilt! My sew-jo had been missing for the last few months, allowing days and weeks to slip by without the one thing that has been such a big part of my life for more than a decade. Fabric play, stitching, patching, quilting have always been a source of pleasure and comfort. This quilt is hopefully a sustained return to that which I once so enjoyed, and an endeavor to stitch my way out of the doldrums.

Click on any image for a larger view.

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed digging deep into my fabric stash and slowly putting the pieces together. Therapeutic really. The quilt features many, if not most, of my much loved stashed fabrics from Japanese fabric houses including Yuwa Fabrics, Kei Fabrics, and Sevenberry. Many of the prints are designed by popular Japanese quilter and designer Suzuko Koseki, and Atsuko Matsuyama.

Some of these fabrics have been in my stash for a number of years and they are now difficult to find, others are relatively recent additions and can fairly easily be sourced online. Of course, I have been adding to my collection for more than a decade and have bought small pieces whenever the opportunity arose. I have also had the great pleasure of going the Tokyo Quilt Festival in 2018 where I was able to greatly enhance my Japanese fabric collection!

I have quilted the quilt with edge to edge vertical lines. The quilting lines are spaced just a ½ inch apart to create a texture that I absolutely love, even though it can become rather laborious to straight stitch the many lines for several hours on end. It is worth it!

For the back of the quilt I have combined my favorite and often used newsprint fabric (Newsprint from the Story collection by Carrie Bloomston for Windham Fabrics), and a beautiful daisy print by Suzuko Koseki for Yuwa Fabrics. I really wanted to use the floral print for the quilt back but only had two yards on hand, and as this quilt was supposed to be a stash buster I thought it only right to use the floral print and combine it with my often used - for it versatile as it goes with everything! - newsprint fabric. The top half of the quilt back is floral, and the bottom half of the quilt back is newsprint.

For the binding I have again stuck with my signature black/white stripe binding, in part because I am very fond of this finish, but also because I do not have on hand all that many pieces of Japanese fabrics in quantities suitable for binding (at least a ½ yard), and the few prints that I do have larger quantities of were not suitable.

QUILT DETAILS

Japanese Stash Buster Quilt

 The finished quilt measures 64 inches x 76 inches (163cm x 193cm).

608 patchwork pieces.

Each finished piece measures 2" x 4" (excludes seam allowances).

This quilt was not strip pieced, instead I randomly pieced

individual blocks of 4 pieces x 2 pieces (a 8½ inch block).

Fabrics:

Fabrics from my Japanese fabric stash collated over more

than a decade, including many

designs by Suzuko Koseki for Yuwa Fabrics.

This quilt is for sale! 

I have made this quilt to raise funds for the official charity of the 2020 Boston Marathon - CYCLE Kids. All proceeds from the sale of this quilt will go directly to the charity, and in turn will fulfill my husband's dream of running the Boston Marathon. My husband Paul is a keen long distance runner and has run 7 marathons across the world. He has his sights set on the Boston Marathon for next year but to gain entry we need to raise funds - all funds go directly to the charity.

My husband has supported my passion for patchwork and quilting for a very long time. He had cheered me on all the way, and financially supported Red Pepper Quilts - particularly in the early years! - and now it is my time to reciprocate and support his mission.

CYCLE Kids is a US based charity committed to working with schools to ensure the basic rights of children to a physically and emotionally healthy start in life all through the experience of learning to ride a bike and make healthy eating choices! CYCLE Kids is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, EIN: 20-1169399.

If you have any questions or if you are interested in purchasing this quilt

please contact me by email: 

redpepperquilts@gmail.com

OR if you would like to make a donation to support my husband
and at the same time raise funds for a very worthy charity I would be
super grateful. Please use the link below:

https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/cycle-kids1/paulhodge4

As always, thank you so much for stopping by! I really appreciate it.
Rita

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COPYRIGHT: Do not copy or use any content or photos from my blog without my written permission. This is original content from www.redpepperquilts.com.