Happy Birthday Julie–One Block Wonder Quilt

My dear friend Julie hit a milestone birthday this year and so I wanted to give her something special.  I’ve been quilting for about 4 years and since I started she’s dropped a hint of two that she’d like one.  She even asked if she gave me the fabric, would I make her one and I said yes but nothing ever happened.  So as her birthday approached, I knew what I had to do. I contacted her son, Patrick, and asked him what colours were in her bedroom.  He said poppy. 

I was off to Joanns and saw this fabric.  It may not be exactly the colours I was after but it grabbed my attention and I usually take that as a sign.  So I bought 6 yards and brought it home.  Six yards????  Well I wasn’t making a typical quilt where you match up different fabrics.  I decided this fabric would be fabulous for a one block wonder.  A one block wonder takes the repeats of the fabric and then you cut it into triangles and create hexagons of identical pieces.

I had intended to get it to Julie before she went of her birthday holiday to Australia but alas, life got in the way.  I did actually finish it before her birthday but with the mail system and crossing the border to Canada, it wouldn’t have made it before she left.  So I mailed it so it would be there when she got home.

I don’t get to quilt as often as I used to but I love it.  It’s a great use of brain power!

So here’s how I did it!

I bought fabric:

I cut fabric, this is but a fraction of the number of triangles I had to sew together (approx 1300 triangles):

I sewed lots and lots of hexagons:  They are all sitting on the design sheet and the rows are pinned but not sewn together. 

I sewed the rows of hexagons together and added a border:

I chose a backing: It’s an awesome Chinese characters fabric.

I quilted front and back and added a binding:  The binding is the original fabric to bring it all together.

I added a birthday note:

I folded the quilt and took another pic, because I love this look!

I mailed it!

From start to finish it took about a month part time.

So Happy Birthday Julie.  I hope you have an awesome year and may the next part of you life be better than the last!

Thanks for looking!

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