A Giant Hexagon Top

Ever so slowly I am making my way through the stack of unfinished projects in the studio. I like having multiple things on the go, it means I can do whatever, whenever, the mood strikes. And that's what happened when I decided to get these old bee blocks out of the back of the closet. I'd put them up on the wall months ago, got excited, then never did anything.

In part, I needed to find, then order the extra fabric I wanted to finish it off. Initially I thought I would use a mix of whites to fill in the blank hexagons. But of the fabrics I purchased to do just this one was a woven hexagon pattern. Frankly, it was pretty awesome, so I decided to use only that fabric. Could I find more locally? No, of course not. Was there info on the selvage? Nope.

Thanks to Instagram, however, and online sales I found more of the fabric.  (It is Kona Dimensions, in case you were wondering.)

Unfortunately, as you may be aware, when your fabric comes from different bolts the same colour isn't always the same colour. I ordered white, but they aren't exactly the same. I suspect that the first one I bought was actually Prepared For Dying White. So I sat on it until I could decide what to do.

In the end, I decided I didn't care for the small variation in whites. In fact, I would embrace it and mix things up. It isn't a look that everyone will like, but that's okay. Not everyone will be staying on my guest bed in my sewing studio - where this quilt is destined to be placed.

The original blocks came from my Unscripted Bee. Blocks I got two years ago.  I made a handful more, completely improvised, hexagons using the same template. Then I cut white hexagons and half hexagons. The whole thing kept falling off the design wall and overflowed on to the floor. While I had it up on the design wall we got a dog. A big, black dog. He was banned from the studio until I got this quilt top done. Talk about extra motivation to get it together!

The entire quilt top is machine pieced. Machine piecing hexagons is not difficult. There are tutorials out there and I looked at them all. In the end, I took advice from Rossie. She does not have a tutorial on her blog, but I conveniently had access to an upcoming pattern of hers in a special project. I promise it will break the process down so nicely. (And I will let you know when that project comes out, have no doubt about that!)

Also, I promise that the quilt top lies flat and was pressed at one point. Let's just say I had some frustrations in trying to photograph it.

Now I just need to figure out how to quilt it. I'm open to suggestions.