Folded Fabric Hexagon Ornaments

While working on the second Triangle quilt, I decided to make my nieces ornaments to match their quilts, using heart buttons leftover from my batik bags. The left ornament matches the Airplane quilt and the right matches the Triangle quilt. They are the same size as Amanda's hexagon postage ornament.

Folded Fabric Hexagon Ornament

I made this ornament in February. The only other time I've made an ornament for the exchange that early in the year was the little red suitcase. I was looking for ideas on how to quilt my Dresden plate quilt when I came across this ornament, so of course I had to take a detour from quilting to make one. I saw the idea at A Spoonful of Sugar, but the instructions are at Sewing and Beyond. Once I figured out the process, I adapted it a bit and ironed everything into shape before stitching it down. I started with a hexagon with the edges measuring 4" and this resulted in an ornament measuring 4" across with 2" edges. The button is 3/4". I had plenty of Christmas fabric, but I decided that this postage stamp print would show the best once folded, and I prefer to have postage-themed ornaments for Amanda over Christmas-themed ornaments. I made a folded postage fabric ornament in 2014, but this one is a little more intricate.

Churn Dash Quilt

I bought two remnants of this pink and blue fabric that were only a half yard each. With the large pattern, I didn't want to cut them up too small, and I was able to get ten 8" squares out of each. I decided on a churn dash block to highlight them. Fortunately it wasn't too hard to find coordinating fabrics. I really like the contrasting white, but that limited my choices for quilting as I didn't want to quilt with colored thread on the white fabric or with white thread on the pink and blue fabrics, so I ended up outlining each block.

Piecing a Granny Square Quilt without Sashing or Blocks

After two scrap quilts, I still had a shoe box full of 2.5" squares of fabric, but I was left with a lot more of some fabrics and colors than others, so I needed a quilt design that worked with those imbalances. Granny squares provided the solution. In a three ring design, individual squares can be used for the center of the block, the inner ring only requires four squares, and the outer ring requires eight. I had previously made a granny square quilt that involved individual blocks and sashing. One of my scrap quilts involved a granny square design, though those also were able to be pieced as blocks due to the orientation. I knew I didn't want to using sashing or have seams between my blocks, so this quilt was going to have to be pieced in diagonal rows.

My 2.5" squares were organized in stacks, which were sorted by color and fabric. I started by reorganizing them into groups based on quantity. If I only had 1-3 squares of a fabric, it went into the group of fabrics that could only be used for the center ring. If I only had 4-7 squares of a fabric, it went into the group of fabrics for the inner ring. If I had 8 or more squares of a fabric, it went into the group of fabrics for the outer ring. Of course, the fabrics for the outer ring could also be used for the inner rings as well, and quantities left changed as I committed them to a block. I picked one fabric for the center, and coordinating groups of four and eight fabrics for the next two rings. Each group became a little pile.

Scrappy Granny Square Quilt

I started this quilt last year. Then we moved, and all the little squares got packed up. (Sound familiar? In two years, it's my second scrap quilt that's been interrupted by a move.) It completes my second 2018 goal. Even after two scrap quilts, I still had a shoe box full of 2.5" squares of fabric, but I was left with a lot more of some fabrics and colors than others, so I needed a quilt design that worked with those imbalances. Enter the granny square.

This quilt was pieced in diagonal rows to avoid sashing or seams between blocks. With 13 colored squares per "block" and 80 "blocks," this quilt involves 1,040 2.5" colored squares, plus 455 white pieces - 108 rectangles for the border and 347 interior squares - for a total of 1,495 pieces.

My previous granny square quilt had a big granny square block on the back, a design I wanted to repeat. I didn't have enough of one fabric to just do one block, so I extended the design. Unfortunately, it didn't quite align properly on the bottom and left sides. I quilted it in a grid pattern. The front uses white fabric, but the back uses a grey and white print since I didn't want that much white on the back, and I bound it in a grey and white polka dot fabric. 

Finished size: 66" x 85"

Want to make one? Check out the tutorial on how I pieced the top.