Saturday, March 7, 2015

Harvest of Hexagonia

Yesterday I woke up with the muse upon me to play with some bits of fabrics that have been accumulating in my space, starting with the sample six-minute circle that I made last week.
This was my first try with the six-minute circle technique. I used fabrics that might be pretty if it came out halfway decent, so this became my starting point for a little art piece.
From there, I pulled out strips of orangey-golds and olives and a big stack of triangles cut off from my forest floor Lotus and Scrapophenia projects. I used half a dozen rulers, including my precious little mini Hex n More, to tame the bits into usable shapes, then just started piecing one segment at a time without a specific endpoint in mind. This kind of shape assembly is my preferred middle ground between completely (right-brain?) loosey-goosey freeform work and linear (left-brain?) hardline geometric patterns. I think that's why I'm so fanatical about the 60° shape family: there are a whole bunch of different choices that all work together, even at different scales. 

Once I started sewing the tiny hexies together, the project took on its own momentum and I couldn't stop working on it. I even came home early from the monthly First Friday gathering at Lisa's Clover Hill Quilts and spent a few more late-night hours (literally quilting after dark!) to finish it up. 

Looking at it in the light of morning, I see summery fields with lines of golden grains, rows of cabbages and other delicious greens, and patches of pastureland carved out of the landscape. The hex field reminds me of the baskets overflowing with crops that our farmers conjure from their soil. (If there's one part of summer that I'm looking forward to, it's the CSA shares from Sub Edge Farm starting back up!!)
Summer harvest piece, unquilted (~16x28")