My latest Forever Project is now finished.  :-)

It's no secret that I've been enamored for hand-piecing hexies for quite a while.  I will admit that making them into Grandmother's Flower Garden rings has gotten boring.  I've been on the look-out for something different and interesting to do with hexies.

I found an inspiration piece that put 4 hexies together in a diamond shape.


The quilter made tons of these in analogous colors of green, blue, and purple.  Then she stitched them all together, right smack-dab up against each other.  It looked gorgeous.  I liked the look and the idea because it only required 4 hexies (less work, less fabric) and was ideally suited to using charm packs!  I could get exactly (4) subcuts from each 5"x5" charm!

So, I merrily proceeded to make tons of these 4-unit hexies, using my scrap bins.  (always looking for ways to use up scraps!)  Therein was my downfall.  After I had made a messload of these 4-unit hexies, I put them up on my design wall, stood back to gaze upon them.   Holy moley, it looked like my scrap bins had been regurgitated.  UGH.  (no picture of this; I don't want to sear your eyes.)

I thought about it and realized why the inspiration piece was so pretty and mine was .... not.  THEY used analagous colors that read as solids.  MINE were pure scraps.  Absolutely no thought as to color or design.  And it was horrible.

Now I needed something to do with all these 4-unit hexies that I had made.  And lordy, there were a LOT of them.  It was kinda discouraging ... months of work and not only did I thoroughly dislike the original outcome, I also had no idea what to do with them.  So, I fiddled around and came up with a half-cocked idea that was "reasonable": I'd stitch the 4-unit hexies together with some white-on-white filler hexies.

Originally, I thought to make a twin sized quilt, because I did have an awful lot of them.  As I began to pin the rows of 4-units + filler hexies up on my design wall, I was becoming unhappy again.  All I was seeing was the WHITE filler hexies, not the 4-unit hexies.  I sure wasn't going to spend time and effort on a bed sized quilt that I was unhappy about. 

So, I cut the idea down to a throw, about 50x60.  I worked out the number of rows I'd need for this size and it was quite a few.  Now, remember ... I *did* have all the 4-unit hexies I'd need (well, maybe I'd need to make a few more).  But I still needed to sew them together into rows ... the number was daunting for a project that I'm not in love with.

I cut the project down *again* .. this time to a baby quilt and I'd applique a border around the whole thing to give it straight sides.  As i worked on this size, i was just shaking my head.  Never in my life have I made a **hand-pieced** baby quilt!  It has always seemed to me to be way more work than was warranted.  :-)

BUT, last night, I finally put in the last stitch on the border and this project is DONE!  The size is 45"x52", which is a decent sized baby quilt.   Unquilted top #73 now gets added to the stack.  :-)

I'm still not enthralled with it.  But, it's the best lemonade I could make with those 4-unit lemons that I had.  I wasn't about to spend more time unpicking them to reduce them to single hexies, as I do have lots of single hexies "packed" together in piles of 4, waiting to be stitched together .. which now, they won't.  So, at some point, I need to figure out what to do with *them*. 

And to wind it all up, here is my finished baby quilt top.  It only looks uneven because of the way it's been pinned to the sheet.

well, sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't - it hurts more when it was a forever project.  Sorry you aren't has happy with it as you had hoped, but from your picture it still looks nice as a scrappy quilt.  Definitely not as Wow as your tumbling blocks but still fine.  I feel like that about my 1st forever project (hand pieced diamonds and hand appliqued border), spent a very long time on it, lots of thought, lots of hours and I don't even like it enough to hang it up as a wall hanging.

all 10 tops are quilted, went pretty fast as I put a roll of fleece on my machine and quilted them one after the other until the rolled up tops were too thick on the bar, cut those off and kept going - almost 2 bolts worth of fleece.  Then I trimmed them all last night - geesh not looking forward to binding them all at once, or even making all that binding.

Ah, making binding is a mindless TV project!

Great that you were able to figure out how to make these work and get them off your plate.

Looks like a good project to tackle a little at a time. 

Definitely over and done with my career as a jelly roll quilter!   

This might be my sixth or seventh or eighth jelly roll quilt;  I do not want to bother to go back through my scrapbooks and verify an exact number. Just know that enough is enough. LOL  This one is about 48" x 78" and is called the "drag race" variation. I think I got the idea from Jordan Fabrics but I might be mistaken about the source.

I tried using Donna Jordan's idea for attaching the binding but since I don't have her strong thumb for pressing the binding to the side nor her iron thumbnail either it did not go well at this house. Live and learn.

Now I am organizing some batik charm squares for Dee's idea for a Beads quilt.

But first I have to work some more on that 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

Oh, that one is very colorful & pretty!

ooh...like how that turned out...colors are splendid!

Well it sure is a pretty quilt. I love the bright happy colors that are so nicely set off by the black polka dots. Love the scrappy binding.