Hexagon Challenge Reveal

If you came to this blog via my personal blog (which has not had much of my attention lately) you may have seen the Hexagon Challenge. Each year after our annual Quilt Show I set a quilty challenge for the ladies which is due on the Thursday before our next quilt show. The challenge for 2013 was to create a hexagon quilt.

The details can be found here (just scroll down). Basically, it could include one hexagon or a thousand, it could be hexagon shaped, or have no hexagons in the patchwork but hexagons in the quilting. There is a myriad of ways to approach this, and the fun part of the challenge is that we are not allowed to tell anyone else what we are making. It is a delicious, excruciating secret (for a quilter, that is). We all see them for the first time two days before they go in the show.

Seeing as our Quilt Show was cancelled due to the Quilt Appeal needing all our time and effort, we decided that we would still have our in-house show on the last class of 2013. These quilts are not part of the Bushfire Quilt Appeal and will be included in our next regular quilt show, so you will be able to see them up close. Would you like to see what the ladies came up with...

This is Shirley's quilted banner. She loves researching her family heritage and this represents the family tree.
The hexagon is in the middle with a "G" appliqued on for Greenaway. Great job for a relatively new quilter!

Close up of the family crest.

This is Judith Chidgey's quilt. The stars are made from star prints.
Do you see the colourful stars, or the white hexagons?

This is one of Chris Casley's hexagon quilts (yes, she made two!).
A very intricate design, yet she says it was very easy to make.

And this is the second quilt by Chris Casley.
It is an Anne Sommerlad pattern called "Hanazono"

Close up of the flowers, all made from hexagons.

Even the label is a hexagon!

And this is Barbara's quilt. Have you seen it before? That's right, Barbara and Chris picked
the same pattern, without knowing! Barbara added borders to hers to make it larger.

And like Chris, Barbara made a second quilt, too.
This beautiful quilt is in soft pastels.

And the label is a hexagon!

And this is Maree's monster quilt. It is huge! It is English paper pieced by hand,
and commercially machine quilted. This is Maree's favourite colour palette.

A close up of some of the fussy cut blocks.

This is Jan K's quilt, which is a quilted and framed artwork.
The basket and the flowers are all made from hexagons.

This is Jan P's quilt. A traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden block in soft pastels.
The blocks were English paper pieced and the quilt was commercially quilted.

A close up of the lovely quilting.

This is Edna's quilt. What a masterpiece! It is a very large quilt featuring English paper pieced
Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks. Each block is fussy cut from one fabric, and the butterflies
are appliqued on. Chris Casley machined quilted it, although we know Edna would have loved to have quilted
it herself. Edna is an inspiration to many, to be able to achieve a quilt like this even with her health concerns.

A close up of a flower.

This is Monika's quilt. It's made with striking prints against a black background.
Do you see the hexagons, or the stars?

And another label with hexagons!

This is Mary's quilt. Mary is a fairly new quilter, she had just started attending our classes
when the fires came, and with all the quilt making we have been doing, she has learned
real fast! The whole quilt, even the black background, has been English paper pieced.

And this is my effort. It can't be called a quilt because is it only the centre of a top
at this stage. I just ran out of hours in each day to get it finished, but I will have it
finished by our next quilt show. I promise! It has English paper pieced hexagons in a ring
with a Suffolk Puff in the centre as the feature block, using Civil War and reproduction fabrics.

So there you have it! The 2013 Hexagon Challenge Quilts. Did you notice how many quilts used black? In my mind I never thought of using black with hexagons, and it really surprised me when I saw six of the quilts with black. That is the amazing part of secret challenges - how differently we all think and see something in our head when we are given a topic.

In the next few weeks I will be putting up the Challenge for this year on my personal blog. Stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tracey

Super Simple 10" Block Quilt: great for layer cakes!

Here is yet another simple quilt that only uses the width of the fabric for the backing. I am loving this size of quilt. It really is a versatile size, and so much easier to make and has less waste when you don't have to piece the back.

OK, for this quilt, all you need are 28 x 10.5" squares of fabric. How easy is that! The only thing you need to watch is that your seams all meet when sewing it together. Here are some examples:

Use big prints like these Kaffe Fassett fabrics

The checkered flag is good for motor sport fans

A simple rainbow effect

Now wait a minute, I hear you thinking, a layer cake is precut at 10". How is this going to work? Well, basically the same way, and your quilt will work out just a little smaller. Not enough to worry about though. You can add a little border if you like. And if you make your quilt only 6 rows long, you will almost get two quilt tops out of one layer cake. You will just need to add a few squares of a similar style or colour, or plain squares, from your stash.

There are some fabulous layer cakes available these days. I did some online browsing and found this fantastic "Get a Clue with Nancy Drew" fabric range by Moda. I love it!

The Layer Cake is 10" square, the Charm Pack is 5" square
Photo from http://pdubsquiltstuff.blogspot.com.au/

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If you have any questions, please put them in the comments box below.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tracey.