Hexies: The Hard Part is Over

Guess whaaaaaaat? I put my last few piecing stitches into my hexie table runner. All the shapes are joined and the papers removed. It's only been ten months and twenty hexie flowers. It's about time, right?

It looks like nothing, but there are a lot of stitches in there. And a lot of tails wagging on the back:

I didn't quite know what to do with the edges. There were folds and loose bits that weren't sewn as they had originally been tacked to the piecing papers. I was going to fuse some interfacing to just the edges to tame them, but that didn't feel right, mentally. Plus it seemed like a lot more work. So I simply trimmed them straight.

This was very make-it-up-as-you-go for me, so certain aspects aren't as great as if they might be if I had thought to plan things out. But I thought instead of trying to stabilize the edges from fraying, and then getting the binding on just perfect to hit where I wanted (and it still might be a problem as it would be right near the unsewn tails that might fray) I just decided to square it off and be done with it.

I certainly went through stages with this quilt top. When I was wrapping papers and basting them in place I was in love. When I was sewing the flowers together I wanted to marry the project. Then my excitement waned. And the project sat. It was rough on the fingertips and it was hard to find time to work on it. But I finally just finished it off. I still love the vintage feel of the fabric, and the colors. I'm just...a little tired of it.

So I've made an executive decision. I'm going to machine quilt this. If I were to choose to hand-quilt this it would truly sit for another year, and quite possibly never be finished. So I'm going to do some simple quilting and a scrappy binding and call it a day. Or a year. Well, almost a year. I want this out and about where I can see it and enjoy it, not folded up in a box waiting to be finished.

I don't know that I could make something like this again. I've seen some truly beautiful pieces and have no idea where people got their patience, especially those who make entire bed quilts out of hand-sewn hexies. The precision is great, and simple hand sewing can be quite soothing. But I like things I can make in a few days or a week. I get too excited to get onto the next thing. So maybe to get my hand-sewing fix I'll start stitching the linings in my bags closed by hand. They'll look  better and I'll get to slow down for a few minutes. And then I can jump to the next thing.

Hopefully I'll have this completely finished this week. And hopefully it's not now so old that it disintegrates when I make my quilt sandwich :)