It was on my list….A Hexie Flower Garden made with the look of traditional 1930s fabrics. The fabrics used in the quilt I made below are reproduction fabrics, not actually “old” fabrics. There is something about this quilt design that screams QUILT to me. It is probably a combination of many factors…Hexagons, Grandmother’s Flower Garden design, reproduction fabrics and the crisp white background. (It really is white! The lighting causes it to look gray and cream.)

I find it interesting in taking photos of quilts…… you see little things that you didn’t see while piecing. This quilt is straight and seams are matched pretty darn good. But in looking at the blue flower when it meets the cream flower in the center, it looks like I made a huge mistake. NOPE, it is a blue boat in the cream fabric that looks like it is bleeding into the blue flower. The same thing happened on the orange flower with the cream elephant moving into the cream flower. Will I change it, no! It is a great learning/talking point when I teach the class. And it was a good point to show you on my two tips!

My next task of this quilt is to decide how to quilt it. I’d love to hear your feedback, you know, you can comment on this blog post! I’m trying to decide if I should go the traditional route. One traditional possibility is outline quilting, and another is a Baptist Fan or crosshatching or clam shell. All of these options seem a bit boring. However, I do like the idea of an overall Baptist Fan. I love to quilt feathers in my background, another possibility. Hmmmm! Maybe a pumpkin seed design in the flower itself. That is what I did on my Kaffe and black dots Flower Garden. That quilt is so busy you don’t even see the quilting unless you get up close. So many decisions whether to keep it looking traditional or bring it modern in the quilting. With the white background, you will see the quilting design. Does that change my mind? What do you think? I’m hoping to have this quilted by next week, so check back to see what my quilting decision will be!

This Flower Garden quilt layout is in the Hex-a-ma-jig tool instruction booklet. Actually, it is in the instruction booklet of all three size of my hexie tools. You can purchase my tools on my website http://www.wendtquilting.com. Or here is the shortcut directly to Hex-a-ma-jig. (click on highlighted words “shortcut”) I added a plain strip of background fabric to the top and bottom to make the quilt a rectangle instead of square. The background strips for this quilt were cut at 3 1/2″, the same strip width as the strips cut for Hex-a-ma-jig!

#1 – Take photos of your quilts. Often any errors or changing points will show up in the photo. Or as I said earlier, I’m not changing a thing.

#2 – Do you match your quilting design to the era of the fabric? That, my friends is your choice. Some quilts just seem to need traditional quilting, while other a perfect for more “modern” quilting designs. In the end, it is your choice!

in quilting,

Debbie