A Hexagon Quilt Update (including a how to video!)

I know, you're all sitting around waiting for me to tell you how the pink and gray hexagon quilt is progressing. My ultimate goal is to make a full sized quilt, which will require 3025* 1" hexagons. I've made 718 so far. Trish kept pestering me, asking when I was going to start sewing them together, and while the real answer is "not until I am very nearly done making them", I couldn't resist making a small patch.  I think a lot of people who I've described the quilt to had a really hard time picturing my layout, perhaps this will help?  Unfortunately, all it's really done is make me want to sew more together! Like, some of the darker pinks around that bottom right one, and to extend the whites at the top up into cream and back into pale pink and and and... (I can't, because I want to be sure the distribution of the colors is nice and smooth.)

For those of you in the unofficial quilt-a-long, I made a really wobbly, incredibly unprofessional video of how I sew the hexes together. I kept looking at the screen instead of my hands and missing stitches, oops!



In reality, I tend to tilt the hand holding the hexes back and forth quite a bit more, so that I barely have to move the hand holding the needle. I tried to film it like that, but all I ended up with was a really nice video of my table as my hands moved in and out of the frame. I'll give it another shot one day. Maybe.

For those of you NOT in the quilt-a-long, who would like to be, the English paper piecing hexagon tutorial can be found here.

*It really requires just shy of 3000, but my goal is to make 3025 to make up for counting errors.

Hexagon Organization and Storage

Since I seem to be leading an informal hexagon quiltalong, I thought you might be interested in seeing how I organize my hexes.  Putting them in plastic baggies is too messy, and it hurt my senses to just throw them in a loose pile in a basket. I have shoebox sized rubbermaid boxes for the rainbow quilt when they are sewn together, but what to do with them while they are loose? The pink and gray hexagon quilt won't be sewn into flowers as I go (since it's not flowers!) so I need a way to store them.  A lot of people on the internet use these handy clear boxes both for storage and for work in progress.

I don't have any of those boxes, and I try really hard not to spend money on stuff that I can make do without.  Since I have more than one hex project going, I need a way to keep them apart as well. If I'm working on hexes at home I use this largish basket to hold all my stuff. It has a little bowl for papers, scissors, thread, needles, and my travel pouch (when it's not traveling.)

I throw my completed into this little hexagon shaped basket before I iron them.

For the completed hexes, I wanted them to be kept neatly contained without purchasing anything. I have been saving the cute little cardboard boxes from Birchbox and they turn out to be the perfect size.  I used the cardboard from a cereal box and carefully cut dividers, and then taped them into place. These work perfectly!

(Fun challenge, how many hexes do you think are in that box? Answer in the comments.)

They are identical on the outside, so I need to find a cute way to designate each one at a glance.  (Yes, I could just write on them, but that's no fun.) The problem is that I am quickly outgrowing my little birchboxes and I'm going to need to find a larger solution. I think this picture is stunning, I wonder where one finds that tray?

Source: lockerz.com via Lisa on Pinterest

There are a lot of different way of storing them, and looking through flickr and pinterest will certainly give you ideas. I'd love to see how you are storing yours, both in progress and as they wait to be combined into a quilt. Feel free to write your own post, or just chat about it on twitter (#hexchat).

If you're new here and are interested in joining the (very very informal!) quiltalong, you can jump in at any time. The tutorial for basting the hexagons can be found here. Our flickr group can be found here. As soon as I have a chance to write it up I'll show you how I join them into flowers (though you can also find this information by googling!)