Charming Hexagons from Morris & Company

I had an unopened Charm pack (5" squares) of the Morris & Company prints and I was thinking about making a Charm quilt ----no two pieces alike, featuring all the prints.

 

First I sorted them into lights, darks and mediums---the packs actually come pre-sorted, which is handy.

I thought about hexagons. Big hexagons. I calculated the largest hexagon I could fit in a 5" square and still have enough for the seam allowance. People tend to measure hexagons by the length of one side and these are 2-1/4". I found a pattern in EQ with a hexagon and fooled around until I got a hexagon that size. I printed a lot of them on freezer paper (I cut 8-1/4" x 10" sheets of freezer paper and backed them with regular paper so they could go through my photocopy machine.)

Then I ironed the freezer paper to the Charm squares

I used a glue stick and folded the fabric over the paper. I didn't trim it.

I used a clamp rather than pins (a trick I learned from Ann Kimble in a recent class on paper piecing) and whip stitched them together by hand.

I started off with the lights around a dark---6 for the first ring.

And then I added a ring of medium shades---12 for the second ring.

Where's that Dottie dog for scale?

These are big.

And then a ring of dark -18.

As I surrounded each piece I trimmed the extra fabric and removed the freezer paper. I didn't have to wet it as I used the glue sparingly. With a little tug it pops right out and you can re-use it several times.

Everybody who is addicted to hexagons has their favorite method. You might want to baste. You might want to buy pre-cut paper hexagons (they come with 2" sides or 2-1/2" sides---I'd go for 2".) You might want to machine stitch these together.

It's growing.

Uh,oh. At this point I noticed I had duplicates. I forgot that a charm pack often has duplicates. It's not a true charm quilt now, but what the heck.

Now I am thinking I will do a (sorta) Charm quilt with every piece of Morris reproduction fabric we've ever done at Moda. (And then there's a big box of Morris reproductions that WE didn't do.) This could be a king-sized quilt. They go together fast. There's a lot of basketball to watch so I need a lot of hand work.