Hexagon Columns Completed

The quilt of hexagons is getting closer to being finished. Yesterday I finished assembling the last of the thirteen columns of hexagon medallions. The columns are not joined yet. I have a few triangles to swap out. A few are whoopsies I need to fix and some are optional design changes I want to make. Having come out of the frustrating doldrums stage, I am enjoying this quilt now.

 

In the following photo, see that star with five orange points and one purple point? It was an original design choice how to handle the interface between color sections. Although I was consistent in my approach to the orange, I now think it would look better if I change all those stars with an odd man out sixth point to have all points the same. It means taking out two short seams to exchange the color in those columns I have not yet joined, and picking out three seams if I have joined the columns. I have come this far; I will go the extra distance.

 

One hundred seventy of those hexagon shapes are symmetric about three axes like a kaleidoscope. Per Encyclopædia Britannica here is how a kaleidoscope works.

The incline of the two mirrors inside a kaleidoscope determines the number of times the pattern created by the reflection of an object is repeated. If the mirrors are positioned at a right angle, four images of the object can be seen. If the mirrors' surfaces are positioned at 60°, six images of the object appear.

 

For three of the total 173 hexagons shapes, I substituted in a hexagon of the source fabric without any seams and no axes of symmetry. These three are camouflaged so it will be fun to find them in the finished quilt. I used a Hex N More ruler to center about certain features; in this next photo that feature is a bird mask. The "N More" feature of the ruler is so true. I use this ruler to cut 60° pieces, yes but it is especially useful to cut 120° pieces by placing masking tape where needed.

     

In addition to the ruler I used specialty pins. The numbered pins were extremely helpful in keeping the medallions in the design order I'd decide upon in the layout I had agonized over. The pins were pricey but well worth it. I oriented the pins so that they helped me alternate seam pressing direction to reduce bulk when joining the columns. In the second photo, pins 4, 3, 2 point left and pins 5, 4, 3 point right, assuring that the columns-to-column seams will have minimized bulk at the hexagon points. Each pin sits on the side of the seam toward which the seam allowance had already been pressed when the half medallions were formed. The seams alternate direction when joined as a column.

There are two other hexagons hidden within the quilt top. Each of them features a mask such as might be worn at Mardi Gras celebration or Masquerade ball. I am considering naming the quilt Masquerade. Mardi Gras makes me think of wild drunkenness and debauchery. The word masquerade makes me think of the song Masquerade from Phantom of the Opera – much more refined and appealing. Here are some of the lyrics.

Harried Hexagon Happenings

This hexagon quilt layout had gotten complicated enough for me that as well as space on my design wall (post dated 8/10/20), it had expanded to invade space on the dining room table. Now it has taken over the surface of the king size bed in the guest room. The quilt will have four columns in pink, purple, blue, and teal with bands of orange at the top and bottom. I assembly-style continued to chain piece the parallelograms formed by adding diagonal triangles to the hexagons for each of the five colors.

  

  

I selected hexagons that have somewhat the same features to group together in the orange headings and footings. Some of these go very well with each other and some clusters seem to have an odd man out.

  

Now comes the hard part of what I refer to as the transition columns between the pink and purple, the purple and blue, and the blue and teal. I also try to group similar hexagon patterns along these transition columns. There are transition interfaces also between the orange header/footer and the column color. These interface hexagons have a different color at each corner which I designate in an updated diagram with the tiny corner initials O, P, V, B, G. In my indispensable road map code Purple became Violet and Teal became Green to avoid a Pink/Purple and Triangle/Teal confusion. I counted and updated my diagram but the detail still boggles my mind and befuddles me when I go to sew on the corner additions. 

  

I also try to optimize seam pressing directions to minimize bumps. Meanwhile I keep finding many whoopsies I have to correct. As I match and coordinate patterns along the columns and within the headers and footers, while controlling seam directionality I do need to give my brain frequent breaks. These 173 hexagons, made of six component wedges and two corner wedges, multiply to 1384 triangles. My husband likened my current project to the 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle we recently took about two weeks to complete (Wander Or Ponder post dated 7/25/2020). Oddly enough, I did use the hexagonal stacking trays for sorting puzzle pieces on my hexagon blocks. I am determined to persevere! I will not shelve this project again for another 10 years.

Third Saturday of August 2020

For "Hang Your Quilt Day" this month the theme was Hot August Nights or Dog Days of Summer. I chose my Overlapping Squares quilt because the reds and golds reminded me of a summer sunset after a long hot afternoon. A refreshing treat on a hot day is a thick slice of ice-cold watermelon and so I added the watermelon quilt. The stand I bought worked well – easier to hang the quilts and much safer.  After my husband's ladder near-fall hanging my quilts the third Saturday of July, (post dated 7/18/2020), I pursued this alternate option and am very happy with its performance and the results. 

The theme meshed well with the weather on August 15th. The weekend in Livermore was hot, as attested to by the thermometer in the shade on my back deck.

A post for the completion of Overlapping Squares is dated 6/8/2016. It was one of my earlier forays into quilting concentric circles and radial lines with rulers.

  

The watermelon quilt pre-dates my blogging (before 2011). It is from an old Debbie Mumm book Quick Country Quilting ©1992. The wooden beads for the seeds was my own addition.

Beginning April 2020, my quilt guild began a tradition of hanging quilts in the front of their homes on the third Saturday of the month as a source of enjoyment for the community and as a thank you for the essential workers during the pandemic. My initial post about this practice is dated 4/22/20.

Hexagon Heaven (or Hell?)

This quilt was to be for my daughter's wedding. She and her husband will be celebrating their tenth anniversary next May. I told myself if I do not finish this quilt now, when I am forced to shelter in place during COVID, I never will. I put all the extras leafs into my dining table and set up an additional table along side it. My husband cut me four blocks of wood so the two tables could be at approximately the same height. I spread out the 169, 168, 169, 170, pairs of half hexagons – counting and recounting, even with the help and cross-checking of my husband, did not give consistent results.  I surveyed the scene, scratched my head, snapped a photo, and texted it to my daughter with the rhetorical question, "Can this ugliness be saved?".

It all started with the book One-Block Wonders and a multi-colored Mardi Gras mask print my daughter fell in love with. In my last post on this quilt – nine years ago on October 19, 2011 – I described the fussy cutting and assembly of all those half-hexagons. Then I stalled at assembling it into a beautiful, flowing creation as shown on the back cover of the book. Alas, I think the chosen fabric had too many colors competing; trying to corral them into color zones was hard, if not impossible, for me to execute. 

With renewed inspiration and increased resolve, I thought that maybe if I concentrated on individual hexagons and accented them with jewel tones drawn from the print I would be more successful.

I grouped a quartet of similarly patterned hexagons, planning to combine the unit with a companion color. Some quartets were not so obvious and had a outlier (or two) but I made a best effort.

Some quartets did not have an obvious dominant color. There were a lot of browns and blacks that did not excite me; nor did I want to feature them. First, I did the quartets which displayed an obvious companion color – "picking the low-hanging fruit" as the saying goes. Adding a solid triangle on opposite corners, I arranged the foursome of hexagons in columns of medallions. First I aligned two teal columns with each other. I considered adding a teal sashing between them.

Next I added pink and noticed I could offset the columns and see a secondary star pattern emerge.  I forged ahead with purple and orange. I really like the orange medallions since they pop so well, though technically, orange is not a jewel tone.

Then I realized if I spaced the columns apart with a kind of "transition" column between different colors, I might be able to extend those secondary star patterns. I explored using the jewel tone solids but then I realized I possibly had enough mask fabric hexagons to use them instead. I would need to be careful to place the "correct" color star-extending triangles on the outer edges."Transition" columns are grey in the diagram that follows the photo.

I will have to pay attention and plan what color triangles I add and where they go on those hexagons. The challenge will be to do this without a large enough design wall. Making the quilt in sections and relying on my trusty PowerPoint diagram is my workaround. Gretchen Rubin tweeted this quote with the accompanying image. This flowing cloud of color hints at my original optimistic dream for this quilt. Eisenhower's famous words remind me to be open to the results and not get hung up in analysis paralysis.

To keep myself honest and motivated, I am sharing my planning now with Cooking Up Quilts' link party MCM #187.