Showing posts with label alphabet quilt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alphabet quilt. Show all posts
Another alphabet quilt update
I apologize for sort of dropping of the map this past week! I just started a new job (I'll be working at my favorite NGO, Amnesty International! Yay!) so my mind has been on things other than crafting this week. But I did want to show you what's on my living room floor at this moment:
Progress! That's all the background pieces for my hexagon alphabet quilt, cut out and prepped. Finally! I was getting so sick of cutting and gluing a thousand shades of white and off-white...
I laid all my pieces out in order to get a feel for what the background will look like when it's all sewn together, and to check that I had a balance of solids and patterned pieces that I was happy with. I'm hoping to keep the background interesting, without detracting focus from the letters themselves. Do you think I've found a decent balance between the two?
I will be taking a bit of a break from this quilt for the coming month, as I have another patchwork project (do you remember the secret project I mentioned a while ago?) that is demanding my attention. But my hexie quilt is never far from my thoughts! I'm really excited about how it's looking so far - I'm hoping I will still be this excited about it once it's completed. I can't wait to begin stitching it together!
Hexies, hexies on my mind
It's been over two months since my last hexagon quilt post! To hold myself accountable (and make sure the hexies won't languish indefinitely in my cupboards in favor of some instant-gratification-type project) I thought I would post periodic updates - so here's what's going on in hexie land (a.k.a my living room floor - the only surface in our apartment that is big enough to lay all these out) these days!
I have made a total of 405 hexies so far - that translates to about 2/3 of what I need for the backgound and about 40% of the total hexies needed for the entire quilt. Slow but steady progress! I'm still focusing on getting the background hexies done first. The other day, decided to lay out the first three lines of letters, just to get an idea of what the background will look like and what the ratio of white to patterned hexies should be. I want the background to be interesting, but it can't be TOO interesting or I risk taking the focus away from the letters. This is what it looks like so far:
And yes, I am fully aware that in these pictures the alphabet actually says A, B, C, D, E, K, L, M, N, F, G, H, I J. But don't worry, the final quilt won't! :-) As I was laying out the hexies on the floor I realized too late that I had gotten the lines mixed up, but since the point of the exercise was mostly to determine the ratio of white to patterned pieces I didn't bother rearranging them.
Even though cutting out hexies is quite meditative, I have to admit that cutting hundreds of off-wite solids isn't that exciting. Can't wait to start on the actual letters. And now I really need to decide on colors for the letters - I have been thinking about this for months and I still can't decide! Oh well, I still have over 200 background pieces left to make before I REALLY have to make the decision...
That's my progress so far! If you feel like making your own hexagon quilt, check out this post.
I have made a total of 405 hexies so far - that translates to about 2/3 of what I need for the backgound and about 40% of the total hexies needed for the entire quilt. Slow but steady progress! I'm still focusing on getting the background hexies done first. The other day, decided to lay out the first three lines of letters, just to get an idea of what the background will look like and what the ratio of white to patterned hexies should be. I want the background to be interesting, but it can't be TOO interesting or I risk taking the focus away from the letters. This is what it looks like so far:
And yes, I am fully aware that in these pictures the alphabet actually says A, B, C, D, E, K, L, M, N, F, G, H, I J. But don't worry, the final quilt won't! :-) As I was laying out the hexies on the floor I realized too late that I had gotten the lines mixed up, but since the point of the exercise was mostly to determine the ratio of white to patterned pieces I didn't bother rearranging them.
That's my progress so far! If you feel like making your own hexagon quilt, check out this post.
Planning a pattern: my hexagon alphabet quilt
I promised earlier that I would share a tutorial for planning a hexagon alphabet quilt, so here goes! Keep in mind that I’m by no means a professional quilter, I’m just sharing my own process hoping it might be useful for someone.
I love the look of hexagon quilts and I had been thinking for a while about starting my own. Once I started thinking about this and looking around for inspiration, I found several beautiful quilts using letters as part of the design, including these quilts by artist Joanna Rose from a 2011 folk art quilt show, and this 2012 quilt from a blog called The Inklingo Sampler. I knew I wanted to make something similar, but figuring out how was a bit of a challenge. I had never planned an EPP quilt before, but here's the rundown on what I did (apologies if it's a bit wordy):
I printed off some hexagon graph paper and started to mark out a pattern. Working with hexagons rather than squares was a bit challenging at first, especially spacing and fitting hexagon designs onto a square quilt. But once you have the graph paper it's totally doable! Of course you can make all sorts of designs, not just letters. Google and Pinterest are great sources of inspiration here. Just print some graph paper and start brainstorming – the possibilities are endless!
So you have your your pattern completed – next you need your templates! If you’ve chosen a common hexagon size like 1” or 2”, you can buy ready-made templates at your local quilting shop or online. But if you’re like me and you ended up with an oddly specific number, this is a great site that lets you input the size of your hexagon and makes a PDF graph paper based on hexies that exact size. Perfect! The I just printed the templates onto a sturdy cardstock and cut the templates out using scissors.
Keep in mind that a lap quilt using 1 inch hexies can mean around 1000 individual hexagons (my quilt uses 978 hexies), so if you want to prep all your pieces before you start sewing them together you will need A LOT of paper templates. I started a sort of printing-and-cutting assembly line in my living room and made about half of the templates in one go, but of course if you start to assemble and sew your hexies right away that will free up some templates to use several times over. Whichever way works for you!
I love the look of hexagon quilts and I had been thinking for a while about starting my own. Once I started thinking about this and looking around for inspiration, I found several beautiful quilts using letters as part of the design, including these quilts by artist Joanna Rose from a 2011 folk art quilt show, and this 2012 quilt from a blog called The Inklingo Sampler. I knew I wanted to make something similar, but figuring out how was a bit of a challenge. I had never planned an EPP quilt before, but here's the rundown on what I did (apologies if it's a bit wordy):
I printed off some hexagon graph paper and started to mark out a pattern. Working with hexagons rather than squares was a bit challenging at first, especially spacing and fitting hexagon designs onto a square quilt. But once you have the graph paper it's totally doable! Of course you can make all sorts of designs, not just letters. Google and Pinterest are great sources of inspiration here. Just print some graph paper and start brainstorming – the possibilities are endless!
With
the finished design marked out on my graph paper, I ended up with a
rectangle that was 37 hexagons long by 27 hexagons wide. The next
step was to decide on a size for the individual hexagons. I wanted a lap sized
quilt, but figuring out what size hexies I would need to reach that end result
was tricky! In the end I decided to use hexies that are slightly larger than 1
inch (2,86 cm to be exact) on each side, which given my pattern will make a
quilt that is roughly 53 x 63 inches (134 x 160 cm) when completed. You can
choose any size hexie for this project, but keep in mind that hexagons are not
square (duh) so calculating the size of the finished quilt is a little finicky.
If you have a very specific end measurement in mind, break out your calculator!
So you have your your pattern completed – next you need your templates! If you’ve chosen a common hexagon size like 1” or 2”, you can buy ready-made templates at your local quilting shop or online. But if you’re like me and you ended up with an oddly specific number, this is a great site that lets you input the size of your hexagon and makes a PDF graph paper based on hexies that exact size. Perfect! The I just printed the templates onto a sturdy cardstock and cut the templates out using scissors.
Keep in mind that a lap quilt using 1 inch hexies can mean around 1000 individual hexagons (my quilt uses 978 hexies), so if you want to prep all your pieces before you start sewing them together you will need A LOT of paper templates. I started a sort of printing-and-cutting assembly line in my living room and made about half of the templates in one go, but of course if you start to assemble and sew your hexies right away that will free up some templates to use several times over. Whichever way works for you!
That’s it,
you’re ready to start your own hexagon quilt! Now, I haven’t made a
tutorial for the actual EPP piecing and sewing because there are so
many of those already floating around the internet – if you are new to English
Paper Piecing, these are a couple of good examples:
English Paper Piecing Tutorial
English Paper Piecing, From Beginning to End
Using the Sewline Glue Pen in English Paper Piecing
English Paper Piecing, From Beginning to End
Using the Sewline Glue Pen in English Paper Piecing
I hope you
found this tutorial useful! I will continue to post my progress on my own
hexagon quilt as I go along. If you decide to make one, I would love to see! Just
drop a note in the comments.
Edited to add: This blog post originally had an image of the diagram I'm using for my own alphabet quilt, but I have removed it as Tilde of the Inklingo sampler felt that it was too close to her Inklingo quilt design. Naturally I don't want to offend anyone so I took the diagrams down - my apologies to anyone who came here looking for them. But again, a quick Google image search should give you lots of inspiration for planning your own alphabet or any other design. Best of luck!
Edited to add: This blog post originally had an image of the diagram I'm using for my own alphabet quilt, but I have removed it as Tilde of the Inklingo sampler felt that it was too close to her Inklingo quilt design. Naturally I don't want to offend anyone so I took the diagrams down - my apologies to anyone who came here looking for them. But again, a quick Google image search should give you lots of inspiration for planning your own alphabet or any other design. Best of luck!
Hexagon alphabet quilt: My new project
I’ll be making the entire quilt top by hand in
traditional English Paper Piecing – that means a LOT of hand sewing!
I’m fully expecting to spend several years working on this project, and to me
that’s part of the charm of EPP – that it’s not meant for fast-results, spur-of-the-moment
type projects. To me, hand sewing is a way to slow down in a fast-paced world.
It’s really quite meditative, prepping and sewing all those tiny pieces of
fabric.So far, I'm working on a bunch of neutrals for the background color.
I did make one concession in the name of modernity, however: I invested in a Sewline Glue Pen. It’s such a life saver, allowing me to prep my paper pieces so much faster than normal and leaving all that hand sewing for when it really matters – joining the pieces. I’m sure that some quilters cringe at the thought of gluing on fabric, but I have tested the method on several smaller projects and found that most of the glue stays on the paper piece rather than on the fabric itself. And it’s water soluble, so whatever small residue is still on the fabric disappears when you wash the finished quilt. If you’re curious, this is an excellent YouTube video describing the process in detail.
Great,
isn’t it? I’ve prepped about half of my hexagons so far, and it has been a
breeze – the perfect craft for an evening in front of the TV! I’m looking
forward to showing you the progress as I go along – I can’t wait to start
sewing the pieces together!
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