QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Saturday, September 17, 2016

Morris Hexathon 20: Walthamstow

Morris Hexathon 20: Walthamstow by Bettina Havig

 Walthamstow by Becky Brown

Morris Hexathon 20: Walthamstow

I named this week's hexagon design for the village where William Morris grew to an adult. After his father's death his mother moved her nine children to an 18th-century home named Water House. William was 13.

The building where they lived from 1848 to 1856 is now the William Morris Gallery, owned and operated by Waltham Forest Council.


Morris grew up in the country but 
the old village is now part of London.

The William Morris Gallery is open Wednesdays to Sundays.
Here is their website:


Google Earth view of the Gallery location.

Morris might be saddened to find out how urban his boyhood home has become. He idealized a life in the country, writing a friend on his fortieth birthday:
"Suppose people lived in little communities among gardens and green fields so that you could be in the country in five minutes' walk, and had few wants, almost no furniture for instance, and no servants and studied the difficult arts of enjoying life and finding out what they really wanted: then I think one might hope that civilization had really begun."
I was listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young singing about Woodstock the other day. The song ends with a recurring theme that Morris could appreciate:

"We are stardust, we are golden, we are caught in the devil's bargain,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden."

Although he might argue with the poetry.

Block 20 by Ilyse Moore

The block is a new design, sort of a log cabin based on a hexagon. There are two pieces, a hexagon and an odd triangle. Don't flip the triangle.

Here's how Becky added the ring of triangles.

This is actually 20---not 19.
Cross that number out.

Pattern for an 8" Hexagon
(4" sides)

To Print:
  • Create a word file or a new empty JPG file that is 8-1/2" x 11". 
  • Click on the image above. 
  • Right click on it and save it to your file. 
  • Print that file out 8-1/2" x 11". The hexagon should measure 4" on the sides.
  • Adjust the printed page size if necessary.
  • Add seams when you cut the fabric
One More Inspiration


Unfinished English patchwork quilt 1835 - 1955
Collection of the Powerhouse Museum Australia

They have 8 pictures of it.



6 comments:

  1. The description is numbered 20, but the pattern image is numbered 19. I really like this design, with its partial-seam construction

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  2. Like this block and how it presents!

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  3. I checked my folder for these pattern and today's is #20. I have 20 patterns plus a #4 alternate and a blank one. Are you naming it Walthamstow?

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  4. The English patchwork quilt is very nice ♥

    summerdaisycottage.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete