The finished quilt! I do love how it turned out. So sweet and old-fashioned with the little embroidered pictures framed in the center of the bright petals, like a child's watercolor paintbox palette. Introducing, Honeycomb Quilt #1. Because Honeycomb Quilt #2 is in the works, done primarily in aqua and red this time, and because Honeycomb Quilt #3 is already in the planning stages, and will be very pretty in PINK! Which is going to be awesome. We've already started gathering the fabric scraps for it. Trying to narrow it down to just a few shades of pink. Some old, some new. Here's some of what we have so far.
I'm excited. Can't wait to dig into this basket. I haven't really used pink for awhile and these spring colors, like the cherry blossoms exploding all around us right now, have captured my heart. I'm reminded of a quote by Bonnie Leman, the woman who started 'Quilter's Newsletter Magazine' so long ago. She said, "A storebought blanket will stop the shivers, but a handmade quilt will warm the soul". So true. We do tend to put much of ourselves into a quilt. Not just the doing part, but the dreaming and planning that goes along with it. But I digress. Back to the quilt at hand. . .
I've been trying for weeks to photograph this quilt properly. And once again, I realize how really hard it is to capture the beauty and the intrinsic qualities of a quilt in a photograph. If there's not enough light everything looks fuzzy, too much light and the colors fade. Up too close and you can't see the overall design, too far away and you lose the detail. Camera too high or too low and the whole thing looks wonky and distorted. My shaky hands don't help matters much either.
I tried many times indoors on rainy days with full-spectrum lighting and on sunny days next to diffused window panes, and outside with three different cameras. The first shot (at top), off the side porch, was with a Nikon D-80 ("big bruiser") on a tripod (foolproof) with a timed-shutter on auto-focus to avoid any jiggling. But as you can see, there's still room for improvement. The only thing out of focus seems to be the quilt! After dozens of shots, with adjusted settings, I just kept getting the same results. (How do you photograph your quilts?) This is as good as it gets for now.
Ditto for this one we photographed on the design wall. But you can see the overall pattern and how the block sections are broken up along the sides. Some have asked about that, and this is one way to square up the edges. I did take another approach with HCQ #2 because the quilt size is different and size and shape will ultimately determine the edge piecing. There is also the option of leaving the edges scalloped. But that means a little more work fitting the binding around the zigs and the zags. I might try that next time.
For HCQ #1 though, I used a super easy self-binding method. That of bringing the backing up over the quilt-top, then simply folding it under along the edge and using a tiny blind-stitch to hold it in place. Mitred corners add a nice detail, rather than having them overlap. I like neat and tidy corners.
And we must not forget to label (or at least sign) our quilts. Your descendants will appreciate it more than you know. I think I already mentioned other details about this quilt in past posts, so I won't repeat them again, but feel free to ask me questions if you have them.
So I guess that's it for this one. I'll post some pics of HCQ#2 (in progress) soon.
