Rippin, stitchin, swapping and changing my mind

I mentioned in my last post that I was planning on making a corduroy quilt as a tribute to the Gee's Bend corduroy quilts.  Well, I've started it!  It is very liberated.  I did no measuring and very little cutting, simply ripped the cords into strips of various widths and lengths.  Next I stitched them together into four log cabin-ish blocks, taking strips randomly.  One strip I accidentally sewed the wrong side up but when I looked, I thought "hey, I quite like the look of that!" so I left it.  I am loving the way it looks and feels so far, but I have run out of my thrifted corduroy now!  I may try and get some soft denim to add a border to the quilt, bringing it up to lap quilt size.  But typically, since I've been looking out for some lovely soft denim in the charity shops, I haven't seen any!  So once more, it's "watch this space" to see how it progresses.



I have sent off two postcards for a swap on Lib-Quilters.   Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of them before I sent them on their way...but here's one I didn't send plus one I've made since:





The ric-rac octopus was originally made for the swap but Waif wouldn't let me part with it!

The red and black star is going to a friend who donated some scraps for my hexagon project.

Which brings me nicely to:



I have decided to take a different approach with my hexie quilt. I wasn't quite happy with the flowers. They look nice individually but I couldn't work out how to put them together without a path and not look too random and cluttered. But I didn't want a path cos it would mean making zillions of identical hexies and I didn't fancy that much. So, I am thinking along the lines of a large hexagon star, like a quilt photographed in this Jinny Beyer book.   I am sorting my hexies into light, medium and dark and will define the pattern by value.  I don't think it's going to be a true charm quilt, but I will try to make sure there aren't more than 3 or 4 hexies of the same fabric and that they are not close to each other.  Hopefully I will be able to use the hexie flowers round the edges of the star somewhere - if not they will applique themselves onto something or other, no doubt...