Border Decisions

I am waiting for my newly purchased design wall to be hung in my sewing room before finalizing the arrangement of all those hexagons on the mask quilt (last post).  I do know, however, that I want it to be queen size and by my estimation I had just enough fabric so that the hexagons cover the top of a queen size mattress with no overhang.  I need to add borders to increase the size.  I wanted to find borders with a feathery look to pick up the feather details in the masks but that is easier said that done.  When I raided my stash I came up with these contenders.

I like that the feathery ferns of the turquoise give a sense of movement.  I think the pink is perfect and it picks up the spotted look of the pink plume mask but I only have two fat quarters of it.  The speckled bright green I think plays off the eyes of the peacock feathers.  I bought the orange at the far right from a clearance bin and think the pattern, although not exact,  really picks up on the orange plumes.  Unfortunately I think the orange in the hexagons stands out on its own and does not need additional help from the border so I am leaning toward omitting orange in the border. I want a purple! Here are a couple purple alternatives from my stash with some pattern but I think they are not a blue enough purple- they lean more toward a red violet.

I really think the pink also picks up the diamonds around the eyes of the white mask but I only have two fat quarters of it.  Dang!

Here are some alternatives I bought at the Pacific Internatioanl Quilt Festival but no pink!  There is also a silvery metallic in the leaves and I had thought to keep to a flatter toned look in the quilt and not introduce glitter.  I have two half yard cuts of each of these.

When I made a commando raid to my favorite quilt store to purchase a 9 degree wedge rule for my spiral table runner (a future post),  I, of course, had to peruse the other options there for border fabric.  Here is what I bought even though initially I was convinced that I wanted a fabric with a crisp print and not the mottled, watercolor look of batiks.

The non-crisp look can work  But again I think the purple is a bit too red and the pink is a bit too red.  Here is a closer look at that black and turquoise batik- sort of a wild horse.  I think it is supposed to give the feel of a coral reef but I think it is quite feather-like and am strongly considering it for the outermost border.   Hmm... maybe I will go back and buy more for the backing as well. 

If you are still with me after all my musings then thank you for following my indecisive creative process.  Also, if you have opinions on any of this, your input is welcome.  I think the final decision will depend on the assembled hexagons and not just the source mask fabric.

Mask Quilt

My current project uses a kaleidoscope quilt technique with fabric my daughter fell in love with because of all the different colors.  She spotted it in a quilt shop in OK.  I called the store and had them send all they had out here to me in CA. The quilt is made from a gorgeous Kaufman print and I delayed starting for quite a while because I almost felt it was sacrilegious to slice it up.  But it is made of Mardi Gras type masks and I did not want to carry that theme throughout.  I am not a carnival kind of gal.  I do agree with my daughter though... the colors are rich and plentiful and I have been wanting to try this construction method.  (See http://robinlovesquilting.blogspot.com/  to enjoy my daughter's mutual love of color.) 

  

After aligning the repeats on the fabric (12" for this one) I cut strips. 

I then cut those strips into equilateral triangles.  

Six triangles will go into the makeup of a kaleidoscope-like hexagon.

Although the six identical triangles can go together with any one of the three sides to the outside I was consistent in putting the straight of grain on the outer edge.  It will keep the blocks from stretching out of shape when joined.  The straight of grain is at the bottom edge in the picture, pretty easy to recognize if you look at the wrong side of the fabric.

 Then off to my Pfaff to chain piece all those triangles together...

... first into two pairs that I iron open, 

.. and keep together.

I then added a third triangle to make triplets 

... which I chained pieced together assembly-line style

 ... to make half-hexagons.

But wait, those half-hexagons are not sewn together yet...

... just pinned to keep them together with their mate. (Or shall we say "better half"?)

Then I am off to my design wall (a flannel backed vinyl tablecloth thumb-tacked to one wall behind the door to my sewing room) to spend countless hours arranging and re-arranging.  Here they are just stuck up there pretty much as I completed them. Things progressed a lot faster when I stopped admiring the uniqueness of each one,  moving them around after each new addition, and instead just kept collecting the hexagons in a plastic bin.   My ultimate goal is to group by color so it flows orange, pink, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown across the quilt.  Then I will join the half hexagons in rows.  (Actually from the orientation of the way they are pinned below, they would be joined in columns.) The end product will be the size of a queen bed.  I started with 7 yards of fabric and this will make enough hexagons to just cover the horizontal mattress surface.  I still need inspiration for border and sides that will drop over the edges of the bed. I would like to pull out the cool tones of blue and purple and green as much as possible and minimize the brown. The orange and yellow and white pop on their own and need no additional help.

Two yards of fabric gives six strips sets, each of which makes nineteen hexagons.  I have sewn the hexagons from 17 of the 18 strip sets from six yards of fabric. In other words 646 half-hexagons from 1938 triangles, with 38 half-hexagons from 114 remaining equilateral triangles left to go.  I have a yard of the fabric left.  I will put a portion of it somewhere in the front of or on the back of the quilt. It will be fun to see the source fabric with the completed quilt. I will also photograph it and post it with pictures of the completed quilt.