Hexie Heaven

I know it's been a busy week because I just made my bed for the first time since last Sunday. How do I know it's been a week since I last made my bed? Well, last Sunday I bought a new bed. Or more accurately, as The Sensible Girl likes to correct me, a new mattress for my lovely Dutch slatted bed base. It's like sleeping at a hotel. A good one, not a dodgy one in a hick town during a stopover on a manic drive from Sydney to Perth. That's another story. 
 

This new mattress fits so snugly into the base frame that I can't tuck in the sheets. So I just kind of shove and make do. But the summer quilt atones for my housekeeping slovenliness. 
 

I have been trying to make some serious progress on my latest hexie quilt. Well, actually, not sure if its my latest, strictly speaking. But it's surely ongoing and so stupidly massive that 'making progress' seems futile. Like walking on a treadmill: you never get anywhere but you know it's doing some kind of good. 
 

This is my quilting corner. I know the pic's a tad bright it's a sunny Sunday morning here in Sydney. A welcome break from the rain and wind. Not sure if you can make out my Dutch houses on the window sill.

The hexie quilt is on the hoop. It all started from a layer cake. I think a Barbara Brackman for Moda one. All lovely muted tones. But then I guess I just went crazy and bought, borrowed and stole fabrics that went happily along with the original layer cake. I chose a hexie size so that I could get a whole flower from one 10" square. And then made 81 of them. Appliquéd onto a large square. Sewed it all together.I know this is a long time ago because this pic is taken in my old house. And I moved just over two years ago.

Got it machine basted at the lovely Material Obsession (a life's joy to live ten minutes away). And set about hand quilting it. Three compatible designs: larger flower over each hexie, scallop within each centre...

 

...and four-sided loopy design over the corner where blocks meet.

And this is the back. You can still see the basting threads. I'll still be quilting this baby when I'm ninety.

And then there's hexie turtles....

And teeny tiny hexies appliqued onto 5" squares....

And then there is the crochet....



This is a little spider web quilt made from a City Strippers (the City Quilter) kit bought while in NYC with The Sensible Girl. I introduced that here. Two and a half inch strips of sweetness, mainly Botany by Lauren and Jessi Jung I think, and an equilateral triangle ruler.

This is my latest...Collections for a Cause (Friendship) with a couple of blending randoms thrown in...all on a sweet little mustard gingham.

 

 

 

Keeping The Boy Warm

This is the latest of my finished projects. It's a quilt for The Boy with Dutchman's Puzzle blocks combined with a Flying Geese border. It's hand pieced. Hand quilted. Started about six years ago on a school excursion to Canberra. The Dutchman's Puzzle, chosen by him, with its centres reminiscent of windmill blades, is a nice nod to our love off all things Nederland.

His dad and I had kids when we were just kids ourselves. While our friends were spending their youth in nightclubs, The Man and I were spending it on nightfeeds. Friends did the post-school European adventure; we did Wiggles concerts and holidays in Huskisson. And so, when I'd finally got my degree, ten years after leaving school, with the promise of tulips and cheese, we packed up our children, our furniture, our lives, and relocated to Holland for a European adventure of our own.

We got jobs, we found a house in a village of thatched rooves and cobbled roads. And yes, it had a working molen (windmill). The children started school. There was only one moment in the five years that I doubted the decision to become 'het meisje naast de deur".  It passed. We began to build a little life there.

Everytime I get on my beautiful fiets with it's large wheels and touring comfort, I am back in Holland. And I hope that's what this quilt does for The Boy. The quilt's on his bed. He lives in Sydney's Inner West; a sharehouse, architecturally vintage, with detailed high ceilings and explansive hallways, with lovely housemates who set each other baking challenges. I sent him a text to tell him the quilt was ready. His reply? Can I come over now?

It's a lovely quilt. His colours, his design. His quilt.