Raw Edge Hexagon Quilt

Its hot, like really hot so posting about a quilt I finished seems a bit wrong!

But its finished so here we go!

Lord knows I love a hexy quilt but after doing two hexagon cushions recently I just couldn't be bothered with the whole paper piecing thing, so I had a lil look on pinterest and low and behold I saw a hexagon quilt where the hexagons were stitched down corner to corner. Now they had turned under all the raw edges but I'm lazy so I kept my edges raw in the hopes that the more its used the more of a shabby chic vibe it'll get.

So basically I sat and cut out LOADS of hexagons out of scrap fabric. I used a plastic template that I got free with Love patchwork and quilting magazine but you could easily print one of and make one out of cardboard!

Then I put them in a shoe box and ignored them for a while! Finally I pulled it back out and started to layer it up. first I put down a layer of fleece fabric [Mine was a blanket from Asda that I got in the sale!] Next I put down some backing fabric and smoothed the whole thing out [My backing fabric was some sort of upholstery weigh thing.] Then I sat with a slightly larger hexagon template and drew out a hexagon grid. And placed one fabric hexagon in the middle of each hexagon. Technically you don't need the grid you could just eyeball it. But I wanted to make sure I had some form of even spacing going on [As it goes its a bit squiffy on one side!] Yet again I used a slightly larger template free from my magazine subscription.

If your gonna make one of these yourself there's two important things to remember! 1. Your hexagon template for making the grid needs to be larger than the one you use for cutting out or you won't get the gap effect and 2. you need to use a pen that disappears to draw your grid on the fabric. I use a frixon pen because they disappear when you iron them but you could also use a water soluble one! 

So you sit and pin every single individual hexagon, which takes ages! I just pulled mine out of the box as they came and didn't worry if I had two the same sat together! Then I sat and quilted corner to corner for what felt like hours! [funny story, my new quilting mag was delivered and I said to myself I wont read it until I've finished quilting this and then lo and behold! It only had a pair of quilting gloves as the free gift!]  

The more I look at these pictures the more I think the quilting on the back is my favourite part I just love how cool those lil triangles look together!

That said I can't wait to wash it to see how cool and distressed it ends up looking!

Its bound using some of the flower strips my friend gave me ages ago! I actually think I'll be using this to bind my quilts for the rest of my life!! 

The quilt itself is lap sized which is nice for snuggles on the sofa but I really do need to start making some bigger ones! 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it now I'll probably put it in the air cupboard until winter. Rikki actually did a lil eyebrow raise when he saw this one and mutter something about the amount of blankets we have. But then I gently reminded him that we can use them in winter to keep heating costs down and he soon shut up!

Plus I think its always nice to be able to offer people homemade blanket if they stay over.

In other news I am toasty as hell! 

And I'm still doing me made may but I keep forgetting to take pictures! So I either post them late in the day or not at all! I'm also struggling not to repeat things because I love to wear my favourite clothes!

Anyways!

Much Love

Frankie 

xxx