Today I am out the door for a quick trip to Omaha, NE and a visit with the Cottonwood Quilt Guild.   I will be teaching Pieced Hexies tomorrow and so it is kismet that I am starting a new “On The Road” project with this trip.

My row by row hand pieced block quilt, now titled “Zen Sewing” is finished and off to the longarmer.  I will post a full picture of the quilt here and on my facebook page when it is back to me sometime in late April.

I decided that I would go back to English Paper Piecing for my new On The Road (OTR) project.  I have wanted to make a Pieced Hexie sampler quilt of sorts for a few years now and have had one designed and just waiting for me in EQ7.

I will be working from these two books for a majority of the Pieced Hexie designs.

And here is the layout pattern for the quilt.

*please note that for some reason when transferring this image to the website from EQ7 it kept “uncoloring” the first orange Hexie in the upper left hand.   I cannot figure why and so I ask you to realize this is indeed an orange Hexie.  The image on the downloadable PDF is correct.  

I am excited.

Here are some highlights of what I plan.

Blue Rosettes -will be composed of various Pieced Hexies Designs found in my books Pieced Hexies and Pieced Hexies Deux.   I also plan to post a few new designs throughout the year here on the blog with free PDF instructions so watch for them.  These rosettes will be scrappy in nature but blue in color.

Yellow & Orange Rosettes– these will actually be a blend of both colors in a scrappy fashion but the design used will be COGS which is found in Pieced Hexies in the original version.

White Hexies – These will be a new design that I call CRACKLE.  It is going to make this quilt very unique.  I will post a how-to blog within the next few weeks on this Pieced Hexie design as there are 672 of these hexies to make for this quilt and I want to get started on them.

There will be a few constants in fabric in the quilt.  The three that I have already determined are shown here.

I am still deciding on the purples and pictures of those fabrics will be shared at a later date.

I have put together a detailed PDF for this project that you can find here.

2016.2017 OTR Quilt Project Info

It is also on the dedicated page for this quilt entitled 2016-2017 OTR Project.

I am giving myself 2 years for this quilt.  It is a big quilt at 81.5″ x 86″ at this time.  I have yet to decided how to border it and that will most likely add 10-14″ in both width and length.   But remember Pieced Hexies use 1.5″ hexies so a lot of ground is covered quickly.

NOTE: the image shown above does have a small border shown.  That is for graphics only to give the quilt a straight edge.

Now some of this project will be done at home, the sewing of the Pieced Hexie blocks and some sewing of larger hexie units to each other when it is not practical to do so while traveling.    But a good deal of the hand work portion, basting and small unit (rosettes up to the “diamond shapes”) will be done while traveling, both for business and pleasure.  Yes, this year there is a scheduled true vacation on the calendar!

Be sure to “like” and “follow” my facebook page for up to date posts about this project. 

I have sewn up some COGS blocks for my first yellow/orange rosettes and I am ready to baste them on my flight out.

Ok…I am off to Omaha!