....my old hexagons, that is. These girls were in a pile of offerings when our quilt guild held a little garage sale many years ago. There were 20 of the blocks, with just a center hand-pieced to a first ring of hexes. Some of the fabric looks like polished cotton, while some seems to be feedsack material, as they are very coarsely woven, and each flower has a piece of orange solid staying consistent in each block, for the center hex.
I adopted them, took them home, and promptly hand-appliqued each one to a 6 1/2 inch block. I had it in mind to sash them or use them in the empty blocks of an Irish Chain quilt. They got stuck away with other UFO's (un-finished-objects), and I visited them every few years, laid them out, and carefully put them back into storage.
A couple of days ago, JoAnn mentioned that she was wanting to make a baby quilt, using the Double Irish Chain pattern, and, to finish it off, she wanted to applique a ducky to the bottom of the quilt. I guess it was the words "Irish Chain and applique" that struck a chord in my brain, and I went to see if the hexagons for MY Irish Chain would possibly coordinate with this current little quilt I'm making.
Well, the colors weren't what I would hand-pick, but with such a neutral background, I could see that they would spice the quilt up just a bit. I weeded out the blocks that had too much purple, and came up with 11 hexes that would work nicely. So I set about UNappliqueing those blocks, and basting them onto this top.
The sun was out yesterday morning, and the call was just too strong. I had to sit down in my chair on the back porch and applique just one flower before I could even come out of my robe and gown ! The rest of the day was spent busily elsewhere, watching Christopher and Allysia for awhile, and whatever else seems to take us away from what we REALLY want to be doing, but I got back to them today, and stayed with it until all of them were properly appliqued and beautifully pressed.
Honestly, the prettiest picture turned out to be the one I used in my banner, so I think I'll add it at the bottom of this post (because I know that I'll soon change my banner again...YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE !)but I think that it will be a lovely quilt when it is all quilted and claimed !
