Glorious Hexagons--a Finished Top!

My most recent finished quilt top is Glorious Hexagons, an English paper pieced quilt that was started early in 2016.

Glorious Hexagons quilt, 62" x 71.5"

My quilt was started when I joined the English paper piecing group at a local quilt shop. The two quilts below were the inspiration for our quilts. The Garden Hexagons was made by Liza Prior Lucy, and the Carnival Hexagons was made by Kim McLean, and both quilts feature Kaffe Collective fabrics. They have published a pattern to make the Glorious Hexagons quilt, but  you would also need the book The New Hexagon by Katja Marek for the individual  block patterns. Each hexagon measures 3" along the finished edges.

Garden Hexagons		Carnival Hexagons

The EPP group was set up as a block of the month, but we actually received the paper pieces for 28 blocks each month. The two quilts shown above are made with 247 blocks (Garden Hexagons) or 330 blocks (Carnival Hexagons.) To make that many blocks each month would have meant making one almost every day! I knew there was no way I could keep up with that, nor did I have the fabric stash to provide enough variety for all those blocks.

Many of the people in our group worked primarily with Kaffe Collective fabrics. I had some Kaffes and purchased more for this project, but included many other fabrics from my stash. The starting point for my quilt's color palette was the fabric shown below. The date on the selvage of the fabric is 1998, and it was probably purchased for a Stack and Whack quilt that never happened.

I included many fabrics in my quilt and had great fun fussy cutting the prints for the individual blocks. The next photo will give you a closer look at some of the fabrics, plus it gives a better view of the block piecing. The number of pieces in the hexagon blocks ranged from one to 24, although I  think the most complicated block I made had 18 pieces (top row, 2nd from right.)

Instead of joining the hexagons together block to block, I decided to add the dark triangles in between plus for the borders. This gave some breathing room between the hexagons, and the dark color really makes the bright prints pop. It also got my quilt to a good size with fewer blocks. My finished quilt size is 62" x 71.5", and it has 83 hexagon blocks.

I had a great time making the blocks for this quilt and have been considering starting another EPP project. I always like to have a hand stitching project in the works.

Linking up with:

Needle & Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Whoop Whoop Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA