Hexie Crumble

Hexie Crumble is finished and labeled.  I started this quilt in 2015.  I had just finished Shattered Kites and needed another crumb quilt to work on.  Quilt-as-you-go hexies had been featured on another blog and I thought: that would go great with crumbs!

I also was wishing for a portable project - something I could stuff in a bag and work on a bit at a time, like my knitting friends.  The idea was to make a stack of these hexies and hand stitch them together.  Timing is everything; the hexies were finished during the pandemic and I stitched everything at home.  It was a nice idea!

Each quilt-as-you-go crumb hexagon is finished with 2" sides.  Initially I made my own cardboard pattern.  Eventually it wore out so I made a pair of plexiglass templates and kept going.  Every time I finished a quilting project I'd sew up some more crumbs, cut some more backings and flannel for batting and create more hexies.  I averaged 20 hexagons at a time.

There's a lot of my quilting project tied up in Hexie Crumble!  Baby quilts, several bed quilts, wall hangings.  Fun fabrics, some that I hated to cut up, others that I was glad to get rid of. 

I finished making 298 pieces in 2020, all complete with front, back and binding.  Laying them out on the floor was fun.  The pieces had all been stacked by color; I started with black, then spread towards the edges.  Pinning them all together and labeling them so I could reassemble... that was a bit more work.  I took photos of it all before I pulled it up off the floor and stacked the 7-piece patches into a basket.

At this point, whenever I had time on my hands watching TV in the evening, I'd stitch some of it together.  On again, off again (more off than on), it took about two years to stitch together. 

I didn't get a good look at the back until after it was complete.  I really like how it looks.  The front is amazing close up, but the back looks great near or far. 

When I spread the finished quilt on the floor to label it, I noticed several hexagons that had strayed from their fabric siblings.  At first I thought I may have assembled some of my pinned blocks backwards.  But each stray piece was a little too far apart to have been an accident.  Besides, I had carefully documented the layout.  So wherever they landed in the front of the quilt must have looked right, regardless of how odd it looks on the back.  

Was going to call the quilt That's the Way...  since right now it feels like cookies are crumbling all around me.  However, Hexie Crumble feels like a happier name and accurately describes the quilt.

One step left to do:  a hanging sleeve.  I'm going to submit it to the Topsfield Fair.  I'm not sure I'll get any prize for it, but I look forward to the critique.  (Although, look at all those unstitched corners!  I'll get 1,788 demerits for that!)

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