Let's start out by saying, that I have learned that I love going to quilt guild meetings, simply because of the programs. Last night my guild's program, Capitol Quilters featured Mickey Dupre as the guest speaker. Her lecture was on choosing a color palette and although I am sure at some point I will ruminate on what she actually spoke about, what I came home with was the images of the quilts she showed us from her collection. Because of the grandmother's flower garden I am currently working on, I was especially interested in the pieced hexie quilts she had with her.
This morning I got up and was putting boxes away that have been piled up in our living room (gotta get ready to decorate for Christmas you know???) and I came upon the small bin of table toppers that I started based on a Fons and Porter Pattern a few years back (Back Issue).
The table toppers turned out so well, I have now made five of them (they are great Christmas gifts). The hexagon when finished, finishes at 48" from point to point across the hexagon, so they are pretty good sized when they are done. I've also turned a couple of them into Christmas Tree Skirts, which are really cute. It is a great, versatile pattern and easy to make. I eventually came across the magazine issue that the pattern was in at a yard sale, and "fixed" my math issues, which was kind of nice.
So the visions of Mickey Dupre Hexies that have been running around in my head are all of a sudden colliding with my Fons and Porter Table toppers. So while these two quilt designs are playing tag with each other in my head, I tried to re-focus on cleaning up the living room. I threw some more boxes in the attic, putting out clutter fires here and there as I worked around the room.
I moved into the dining room to reclaim the dining room, and low and behold I ran into the "Foundation" Box. I started the Foundation Box a few years back after a Bonnie Hunter Workshop where she showed to us the miniature log cabin quilt she had made. I promptly came home and created the box.
The box has two zip bags of strings and crumbs, one neutral-light the other is medium to dark. There is no rhyme or reason to what kind of fabrics are inside the bags, you will find brights, civil war prints, novelties, etc. There are a slew of 4" Log Cabin foundation blocks that I'd printed when I first started the box and now there are a slew of blocks I copied out of the May/June 2013 Quiltmaker Magazine that was also from a Bonnie Hunter article. Once a week I sit down and spin out several of these blocks. I'm sure eventually I'll have enough to make a quilt and it goes through the strings and crumbs that I create. When they are finished I put them together in another box where I've been saving them.
So now Mickey, Marianne, Liz, Mary, and Bonnie are all playing in the playground of the design center of my brain. At first they weren't together, but then they all became friends and ideas started happening. If you could have heard the conversation, it went a little like this:
Mickey: Hey, Marianne, I spent the evening with Cathy's Guild last night, and she's got pictures of my designs hanging out up here. Why don't we get together and have a Hexie design party here in Cathy's head?
Marianne: I don't know, the hexie design in our magazine has an awful lot of pieces, I'm not sure she can get them small enough and not drive herself crazy.... But the thought of a party sounds fun. Let's call Liz. We shouldn't leave her or Mary out!
Liz: Maybe we should invite Bonnie Hunter she does some foundation patterns for things that are really small..and she likes really small pieces. Hey Bonnie, come to our party!
Bonnie: Oh I LOVE parties, thanks for inviting me! She could use foundation patterns for the diamonds and that would make them so much easier.
Mary: Oh, that could work, I wouldn't want her to lose her mind you know, then we wouldn't have anywhere to play, and I love to party in her head, she has a really fun place to party in here, so many bright colors.
Mickey: Let's see the finished Hexies would have to be pretty small. She's going to have to sit down here in a minute and do some math you know?
Bonnie: She can use her scraps to make the quilt, that would make her husband happy you know. He likes it when she can quilt and not spend too much extra money.
Marianne: All I know is that her copy of EQ is so old, she's going to have to draft the foundations herself and copy them. She needs to stop cleaning and go find her drafting supplies.
Liz: They are on the computer desk. Quick somebody tell her to go clean the desk off and maybe she will get the idea!
Mary: The desk, Cathy, GO CLEAN THE DESK!
[Cathy, distractedly walks towards the desk...sees drafting bag and computer. Straightens up the items on the desk, puts things where they belong and throws away the trash and returns the dining room]
Bonnie: This is so EXCITING! Cathy stop cleaning NOW and listen to us!!!!! Go draft out this idea before you lose it!
Cathy: OKAY ALREADY! I am listening, see me sitting down at the computer....[click, click, click]
So I stopped cleaning and played around for 15 minutes on EQ to flesh out the main idea....and came up with that as kind of a base line pattern. Spent another 15 writing this post and that's about all I can spare for now. Tonight I will sit down and draft out the foundation patterns now that I have a good idea going, well thanks to Bonnie, Liz, Marianne, Mary, and Mickey. I'm sure when I've made a few hexies, that I'll have to play around a little more with them so that they finally decide what kind of quilt they want to be in, but for now, the seeds have been sewn, I've written the blog post, and now I'm going back to cleaning my living room.
Later Days!
Cathy
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