Monster mash

This hulk by the sewing machine is the hexagonal bed quilt. You're seeing the backing.

I wanted to experience how manageable - or not - this bigger-than-queen quilt would be on my Janome 6600. So far not very -  it's like wrestling with a beast!

Stitches waver along the ditch even with the walking foot. Maybe free-motion will be better (ha!). Maybe a new machine with another two inches would do the trick. What I know for sure: un-stitching is in my future.

Bed quilt & studio progress

With the sewing machine downstairs in the old studio and the quilt on the design wall upstairs in the new studio, so I carefully stacked sets of triangles to re-lay on the old design wall in preparation for piecing.

little hexagons ready for piecing

What an ordeal experience getting points to meet! After much trial and error, they occasionally matched pretty darn perfectly enough.

center point of hexagon - front

Even the back side looked pretty darn good.

center point of hexagon - back

Then I added a triangle to three sides of each hexagon to form bigger triangles. And repeated the cycle to form seven big hexagons.

big hexagons ready for piecing

Trudging up and down the stairs between the old and new studios pushed me to make more progress on the move. When help was available, I moved out the bed and moved in a worktable. Except I can't get a straight shot of the whole design wall now.

Instead of more pieced triangles, I intend to fill in the negative space with solids. Here's the initial trial with two solids filling in the center:

higher contrast center

After getting two more colors, I auditioned placements:

lighter valued, lower contrast center

medium valued center

less saturated center

more saturated center

This will become one giant hexagon. Hmm, which one? What I do know: I'm relocating the sewing machine for this next round of piecing.

Hexagons & triangles on the walls

After all that fmq obsession, I was itching to get back to designing and piecing. I decided to start BIG with a queen size bed quilt I've procrastinated about for a long time.

Making something for a friend can be tough - especially when it's a surprise.  Add a restrictive palette in prints and I'm stressing. But this year I intend to buckle down and not put off until tomorrow.

I've nearly decimated my stash of blue prints to make this stack of triangles.

360 equilateral triangles

Doubts and repetitious cutting almost did me in. Then hexagons morphed into triangles on this not-big-enough design wall:

an oblique view due to light fixture & worktable

Nothing like a project to get motivated with the next phase of the studio move. Picking up from half a year ago, I used velcro Command Strips based on this tutorial from Marianne of The Quilting Edge to put up an 8 foot square design wall from two 4x8 sheets of 1" thick foam insulation:

new design wall in new studio

The top and bottom seams mark the middle five-foot height within which I don't have to get on a step stool nor get on down on the floor. Here're the hexagons and triangles on the new wall:

 no obstructed view (yet) on the new design wall

It's not queen sized but with only one triangle left, I must've miscalculated.

That's okay. Instead of buying more fabric and cutting more triangles (ugh!), I'll go modern and add solid negative spaces. Wonder if there'd be enough leftovers for a baby quilt for the first grand nephew due in May.