A Finish

I have a finish (maybe). Yesterday after Jack's appointment with the eye doctor we stopped at the quilt shop and I got border fabric for my Honeycomb  table topper. When we got home I layered it up and quilted it and added the binding; I machine finished the binding this morning. For the backing, I was able to use fabric leftover from piecing the backing for my Jellyroll Race quilt that I will layer up tomorrow at the group meeting at the church.

I used Kona bone for the binding it finished the edge off better than the red fabric would have. After I stitched the binding to the front I pressed it away from the border and then turned it and pressed it, shaping the corners and pressing them in place. I used a washable glue stick to hold the binding and I stitched in the ditch on the front along the binding. It turned out pretty good.
I am not sure whether to call this finished or add some quilting in the hexagons. There are three options I am considering.

1. Rows of stitching point to point across the hexagons just in one direction
going the length of the row. That would be 6 rows.

2. Rows of stitching point to point in both diagonal directions. That would be 16 rows.

3. Hand stitch a smaller hexagon  one inch from the seam in all 34 hexagons.

I already discarded the option of point to point across both the length and the diagonals and I am still considering no more quilting at all.

For all my concern about not cutting the triangles exactly right to fit the odd size of the hexagons, this squared up perfectly. Maybe I should say it hexed up perfectly. Anyway, when I fold it in half, all of the points (corners?) line up exactly.   All those bias edges can be very friendly if they are handled with reasonable care.

Honeycomb

I have been working on the Honeycomb pack and it is coming together slowly. It is a bit fussy and I am taking lots of breaks.

I thought that I would sew 6 rows with 6 hexagons but after looking at it for a couple of days and trying to figure out a way to have straight edges on the outside edges I realized that 5 rows, with the center row longer and the other rows shorter by one hexie at both ends of each row, would work much better and give me pointed ends to make a good table runner.

The photos on the left show how I had the hexies up on the wall when I was just looking at them and the lower one is the arrangement I am using. The top three rows are sewed together and the bottom 2 rows are still just hexies and triangles sewed together to make  diamonds.

I figured out what size to make my triangles and how to trim them without losing the dog ears. That meant that I pressed to the hexagon and trimmed then I pressed the seams open.  Pressing this way and that way is  an extra step but when I sew anything that has an angle I have better results when matching when the seams are pressed open and that extra step kept the dog ears intact which helped in matching the points.

When I match the points, I match up the dog ears so they are lined up exactly, one on top of the other (top left). I place a pin exactly where the seams will cross, checking on the back to make sure it is exactly at the seam crossing point (top center and right). The bottom left photo shows that same seam after stitching. The other bottom photo shows another area with more matching points. There are a few other places where the points are not perfect but they are good, remembering that the enemy of good is perfect; I am not going to mess around aiming for perfection.
I have to sew the last 2 rows together before I can add them and then I will have to go back to the quilt shop to get something for the borders. I am leaning toward a red, probably the floral red but I will see what is in the shop. I am not going to run all over trying to find something I have set my mind on; I am leaving the options open.

Hexagons

I was excited about the Honeycomb pack from Moda but I am a little disappointed. The hexagons are laser cut to an odd size.



They measure 6 inches point to opposite point but  flat edge to opposite flat edge they measure a little more than 5 1/8 but not quite 5 1/4. It would not make it easy to cut a few more hexagons to match the size from my own fabric with a hexagon ruler.












Of course, I could use the template that comes in the pack to cut more hexagons. I would do it by marking the fabric around the template and cutting on the lines using a straight ruler and my rotary cutter. The template is ordinary template plastic and I would not want to shave it with my rotary cutter. This photo shows the template on the hexagon from the pack, it is sized perfectly and the patches are all cut exactly.

What I want is to cut triangles to sew to 2 opposite edges and therein is another problem. The size triangle to cut is a size that also falls between the lines. If I make it a little bit larger and trim, it fits, but I lose the dog ears that help me line up the points.






This photo shows all  the hexagons up on my wall but not in the order that I will  put them together.
I am cutting a few more from my own fabric to replace some of the very light prints and I have worked out the size triangles I need.
 This is getting to be more fussing around that I want to do if I am buying precuts.

If I were going to only sew the hexagons from the pack together with each other or another Honeycomb pack, there would be no problem. I could also use my hexagon ruler to cut each hexagon down to the next uniform size on the ruler (4 1/2 inches), so I might buy a Honeycomb pack again for the variety.  I think that a hexagon ruler and triangle ruler or maybe the "Hex and More" ruler are probably the way I would go and either buy a fat quarter pack or a Dessert roll for the variety. Maybe after I put this all together I will decide that I was expecting a problem where none existed.

We'll see!