A Little Progress

All of the main body "My Flower Garden" pieces

I have all of the pieces cut for the My English Garden quilt flowers. I stacked them all up, grouped by flower petals, flower centers and green diamond leaf pieces for each block all grouped so I could just grab the top one and start sewing. I left them on the cutting table over night. When I got up they had been scattered and mixed up like puzzle pieces. While I can't prove it Dot, the cat is getting the blame.  

I put them back in order and covered them with tissue paper, unrolled over the whole cutting table so she would not play with the pieces while I was away. Tonight I had time to sew one of the flowers. I did not have time to place the 60 degree diamonds. The stack is pinned to one of the petals and I will work on the diamonds once I have all of the flowers sewn so I can still opt to change the colors of the leaves. I am not completely sure I got them all back like I wanted them after Dot shuffled them. 

Once the diamonds are attached around the flowers each block will be a hexagon shape.  Where the green leaves match up it will look like a tumbling block. 
  

First Flower

Tonight I sorted the groups by flower color, blues, reds, purples and stacked them so that I would not have to change thread colors so frequently. The purple stack is above the flower in the photo on the left and the reds are on the right. The blues are by the sewing machine so not in this photo.  

To speed things up a bit, instead of making Y seams and working my way around the flower, I attached each petal to the center leaving all of the petal side seams open. This allowed me to keep the blue bobbin thread and the yellow sewing thread until I was ready to sew the side seams. I also did not press the flower center seams until all six petals had been attached; then I pressed the yellow center toward the dark color petals. While I was at the ironing board I also pressed the petal side seams. This felt a little backward to how I might normally sew hexagonal seams and it gave me a nice line to use for the seam line and insured the petals stayed perfectly flat and in place. 

I sewed most from the outside to the center but others from the center to the outside. That was determined by which side I had pressed under and which side I pressed flat. I am not going to press the petal seams open or even all the same direction as in all clockwise or counter clockwise because with hexagons it is better to let them be where they want to be. You will know what I mean when you sew a few. I pressed them so that they fit best and naturally lay flat. When I add the leaf section I will start by matching the wider point side to the petal seam, stitching from the center to the edge.

This quilt has 18 full flowers, 4 half flowers with centers, 6 two petal partial flowers without centers and 4 one petal partial flowers. None of the larger full flowers have any repeated colors but all of the partial flowers are repeats of the full flowers. Each block is 15 inches across so this will be a full size quilt. I will decide on what kind of border after the main top flowers have been joined. It will also be quite vibrant. I just couldn't see making these pretty flowers in any kind of muted colors. 

From Online Etymology Dictionary:

hexagon (n.) 

1560s, from Latin hexagonum, from Greek hexagonon, from hex "six" (see hexa-) + gonia "angle" (see knee).