Hexies

 There is a long story to this quilt, so we will start at the beginning.

Perusing facebook one day, I found a post from a lady named Marci who lives in Michigan.  The following is from the letter that she included with the incomplete quilt top.

"Every Quilt has a Story...

The UFO Story of Grandmothers Flower Garden

Southwood Quilters Club of Grand Rapids MI

Marcia K started the quilt in the late 1990's when the class was taught.  She couldn't hand piece anymore so... Marcia K gave the top to Elaine 'to finish it.'

Elaine put it in her sewing stuff to 'get to later."  Elaine found it again in March 2023 while cleaning out the swing room.  Elaine gave it to Rose to finish.

Rose doesn't hand piece, so she brought the UFO to Club March 30, 2023.  She gave it to Marcia H. who said she would look at it.

Marcia H. doesn't hand pieced, but thought to finish it by machine.  However, arthritic hands and nerve damage limits taking on anymore projects than what's already in the house.  She posted it to the (Mystery Quilts Anonymous FB) UFO challenge 2023 page in hopes that someone would take on the challange.

Beth Durand of Oregon stepped up to take on the challenge.  That is how Beth came into possession of this UFO.  She said she will machine finish it and donate."

That's is Marcia's part of the story.  My part is that I saw the incomplete quilt top on FB and thinking that it was made by English paper piecing, I agreed to take it on.   The box left Michigan on April 4, 2023.  When it arrived in Portland OR, I pulled it, took a look and ordered some paper pieces that would fit this much larger size.  Then continued to work on whatever hand project I had at that time.

Finished that hand project, ready to pull this out.  What!?  It's hand pieced?  And some machine piecing?  "Y" seams!  Oh horror!  I tried by machine, nope, that's not gonna work.  Did some sad attempts to hand finish the blocks that were partially complete in the quilt top, then decided it was ready to quilt.  During summer of 2022, I had stopped at a garage sale from a quilter.  Found a package of batting and brought it home where it lived under my longarm for a year.  When this was ready for quilting, I pulled that out.  It''ll be perfect!  Right size, right price!  Oh my.  It's circa 1980's, so extra thick "comforter thickness" batting.  Oh well, donation quilt!

Quilted the whole thing with continuous curves from point to point and then decided that the best way to finish those edges was to cut them off straight and lose 1/2 of several flowers.  I wasn't willing to take on trying to do bias binding around all those corners with that thick batting.  Brought it to the sewing room where it sat for several weeks during the heat of summer and too hot to be up here with an iron on.  Finally, pulled it and did machine binding on both sides of the binding and have added it to the current pile of "police quilts".    Next stop for this quilt is probably the Washington County Sheriffs office for donation.

Meanwhile, Marcia also included LOTS of extra hexies in the box with the quilt top.  Currently, I am taking those and making large flowers, same basic design as in this quilt.  I've added white background from my stash and when I get it completed will quilt it up as well.  Watch this space for more info on that quilt, but don't hold your breath.  I've got about 3 of the 12 flowers completed, and there will be some accent triangles as well.