Grandmother's Flower Garden

I completed this quilt over the weekend, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. I started this quilt as a secondary project, thinking I could just piece a few hexagons every so often. Needless to say, the task was much longer term than I anticipated. First, making all those hexagons - cutting out the paper templates, tacking on the fabric. Piecing the 'flowers' by hand was quite pleasant, but then I still had a mountain of pathway hexagons to make. Then came the enormous job of joining all the flowers and pathway pieces. I did that part in rows, making the quilt in two halves and then joining the halves together, as the two sections were by now quite unweildy. It was a relief when I could start taking out the paper templates. I trimmed the edges and attached the border by machine, then began hand quilting around each flower. The border took longer than anticipated too, but I was determined to finish the quilt over the Christmas break. Sitting under a quilting frame in Auckland's heat and humidity was no picnic, but I pressed on (listening to Rebecca, read by Anna Massey on my iPod). Then trimming the borders, making the binding and stitching it on and it was done. Phew!

Quilt Day 2008

I usually get all my quilts out of their blanket box in the summer to have a look at them. All the others are in storage so these are the ones I've completed most recently. Hopefully I'll have one more to add in a couple of weeks' time when the Grandmother's Flower Garden is complete. Meantime, I'm trying to work out how to best use my vintage sheets as backing fabrics for the three completed quilt tops in my pile.