Painted Hexagons - part 4

Finally a finished quilt top !
I say this seldom but am I glad it is finished. This was a surprisingly tedious job and whilst I am very happy with its outcome, I struggled over the last 15 or so Hexagons. It just dragged on too long.

Things looked up when I put it all together with the gorgeous newspaper print as background.

And I love how each hexagon is framed by the solid fabric which I think brings it all together. I had enough fabric fro 39 hexagons. Actually I would have had enough for a few more but not enough for another row of hexagons, so I left some of the purple fabric out as I thought I already have enough of it in here and I am not that fond of purple. 

It was a bit of an odd experience to just use the prints in this collection because I have not done this in a long time. It was sort of restrictive and possibly added to my being a little bored with the hexagon making in the end.

But I do love the way it looks and how each some of the prints change their characteristic through the hexagon shape.

And although paper piecing took a long time I am convinced it was the right decision because I would have had a lot more issues with biased cuts otherwise.

I kept the paper on as long as I could and removed first just the bits that covered the solid fabric when piecing the hexagons to the newspaper triangles and then later on once I created the diagonal rows, the rest. In this way the whole thing kept its shape rather well.

Now onto basting and quilting. But how to quilt....

A finished Single Girl quilt

Things have settled back to normal here at needlesandlemons headquarters after Quilt Con and in fact I should be popping in here a bit more regular for a while with posts about quilts in progress and not just finished quilts.

I have currently no deadlines for any of the magazines I worked with last year and am free to show what I want. I really love working with LP&Q but there is a small downside to it in that I can't show much of the work I do for them until the issue is out and then it is only the finished quilt. I hope I will work for them again in the future but right now I am a free agent !

Alas this post is also only a finished product; one that was a commission for a client and which I could have shown but didn't have time....

Anyhow, here is a picture post of the Single Girl quilt I started here. My client commissioned me to make a quilt with the 'Single Girl' quilt pattern as a single bed quilt for her lovely daughter. A size I have worked with only once before for another client. It's an interesting size as it is long and narrow and this pattern lends itself wonderfully to it.

The quilt is 2.20 m x 1.20 m which is a great size for a single bed. The fabric used are all Kona colours and the background colour is Kona Slate which is a bluish grey that is fresh and sets of the bright colours of the rings.

I quilted in my favourite quilting pattern, the continuous circle of course and added on two corners a partial circle for a bit of interest.

The backing fabric is the 'Palette in spakle' print from Carrie Bloomsten's paint collection which I think is a great print for a young girl.

I make no secret that this quilt pattern by Denyse Schmidt is probably my favourite of all times as it is utterly modern and contemporary and I again loved making this quilt and collaborating with my client on fabric and colour choices. It was fun and she and I are both happy with the result. Isn't that what's all about ?

Stash Note 95

New to my stash is the 'Paint' Collection by Carrie Bloomstone for Windham. This is her second collection after the very succesful "Collage" the year before. I sort of missed that one or let's say it took me a while to like it and when I finally did it was mostly gone. C'est la vie.

So with this collection I went all out and bought a fat quarter set of all prints. They are wonderfully different and the colours are to die for.

The collection has many prints and quite a selection of marbled solids. I have tried to bring the vibrancy of the colours out in the photographs but they really don't to the turquoise, yellow and orange justice.

The pattern is very similar to the 'Collage' collection and to be honest which is great given that I missed it the first time around. 

Look at the wonderful flowers in these prints.

And the newspaper strips above.