A blog about my life, knitting, and other stuff.

May 28, 2007

Sunday Sewing

Wes took the kids to see his parents this weekend which left me with the entire day to myself on Sunday. I got One-Block Wonders from the library a few weeks ago and am really fascinated with this style of quilt-making (I've seen from some online reading that the technique is similar to Stack-N-Whack). You create hexagons, or octagons, that are kaleidoscopic. Unlike Stack-N-Whack you don't have to do all the fiddly little bits of piecing to make them into traditional square blocks. The quilts in the book are very abstract and really fun. I spent some time at the fabric store on Saturday and picked out a very silly fabric.



This gives you some idea of what finished blocks will could look like.



I picked it mostly because I liked the shades of green in it punctuated by some very small bits of magenta. I cut and cut and cut.



On Sunday I spent a solid 8 hours sewing and pressing. I have 38 completed hexagons and about another 38 that are half-done. There is still a big tower of triangle waiting to be stitched together.

For kicks I laid out some completed blocks to see what they might look like.



I like the colors a lot and I have a much better sense of what to look for in a fabric if I want to do this again. You need BIG prints which are hard to come by in a quilting store since most quilt fabrics have very small patterns. I'd also lean toward something slightly monochromatic with only one or two accent colors.

I still have a huge amount of work to do on this but it was a really fun way to spend a quiet day alone, listening to This American Life.