Giant Hexie Quilt - Done and Gone

[sew].

Sewing till all hours of the night before you leave to Grandma's house for Christmas is fruitful. For my sister. Who ended up with this gift I like to call "Friday Night on the Farm in Saskatchewan in the Middle of Winter when your Husband is Away." Its a hexie quilt, a collection of romantic comedies on DVD, and a bottle of Baileys. 

Am I right?

I removed the borders.  I originally added them to make the quilt bigger since my first run didn't seem big enough for even a lap quilt. But, I didn't want to go through the work of ripping out half-hexies along the bottom and adding a couple of rows. All those zig-zags and pivoting made me a little dizzy. So, borders it was.

While the borders were ok (better in real life compared to photos posted), they just weren't doing it for me and I decided to lengthen the quilt the proper way. Late in the game considering I only had a few hours, but oh well!!

I did some simple quilting, as suggested in Karen's Giant Hexie Quilt pattern, outlining the hexies about an inch away from the edge. My word, it is VERY exciting seeing a quilt come out of its first wash and dry after being quilted and bound. The quilt rumples up and gets really cozy I tell you.

By far the best surprise for me was the backing because I fell in love with it. I had some of this Anna Maria Horner Night Garden in my stash - and saw that it was going to work colour-wise. But wow, when its quilted up? Wow. Let's just say I've ordered a LOT of it in this colorway (and in the pink because that looked delicious also) because its really rather stunning when quilted.  And exotic-looking. I like stunning and exotic looking, so I might just become more of an AMH fan. At any rate, I had just over a yard of it, so I had to creatively piece it with my Outfoxed Circles to come up with a full backing. 

I really loved making this quilt and loved giving it away, especially to my sister who totally appreciates this sort of thing! The hardest part was committing to fabric choices on the front, and to be clear I pretty much imitated Karen's gray/teal/yellow combination, throwing in a pop of red. I think it works ....

Happy New Year everyone xoxo. Hope to talk a lot more sewing with you very very soon :).

Edited to link up with Elizabeth at needle and thREAD.   And on that note, I suppose I forgot to mention what I'm reading ... I've got a few things on the go as usual, but one that has me glued to my handy dandy kindle is A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS and Dangerous Days at Sea by Rich Phillips.  Because I went to see the movie Captain Phillips the other night and it was amazing. The book is equally so.

Ok and that's really all for now my dear friends!!