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.