Pink and Grey

 

Earlier this year (or was it last year?) Grandma gave me a stack of pink hexagons that had been made by her sister.  Grandma had put some of the hexagons into a quilt, but there had been heaps, and these were left over.

I wasn't 100% sure what I was going to do with them, but knew I wanted to highlight the 'tumbling block' aspect.  And being a very pink quilt, decided to pair it with grey.  I found a light grey for the background, and an Australiana style floral in pink and grey for a wide border.

After deciding on the layout (which used all but one block), I started sewing the hexagons together in rows, with a heap of Y seams.  Once the whole centre part of the top was together, it sat there for a long while until I decided what to quilt - I was going to quilt the centre and add the borders later.  To bring out the tumbling block, I settled on 3 different designs for the blocks, and each block would have a different design on its 3 faces, with the density of the quilting varying according to the shade / side of the block.

Once the centre part was done, I added the borders, making sure that the pattern was all the same direction, i.e. the flowers were all upright, and added the extra backing and wadding.  I quilted the borders in a sort of freeform serpentine pattern, to sort of mimic the flowers.  And yes, much of the inspiration for the quilting was from the Angela Walters books I got for Christmas one year.  All that was left to do was put on the binding.  And I also found a use for that one last hexagon block.