What is Grandma Growing?

From time to time people will give me a half-done project because they figure I will do something with it. I think people just know that I won't just toss these 'gifts' out and that I just can't pass up a challenge.

Several years ago I was given a bag of quilt stuff that someone thought I could use. Included in the bag were quite a few hexagons and one 'flower' made up (see below)

Now you are thinking that I was lucky to get these already cut hexagons, right? You would be right except that they were 7" hexagons! Yes, SEVEN INCHES! Also, in the bag were some smaller hexagons, but not all of those were the same size. They ranged from about 1 3/4" to 2 1/4". I figured I would tuck these treasures away until I felt up to the task.

I pulled the package out and brought it along to a quilt retreat a couple of years ago and late in the evening, when we didn't think it was wise to sew on anything we didn't want to ruin, Katie and I put as many flowers together from the big hexagons as possible. When people started coming in to the room in the morning we had them laid out on the floor and we did get some interesting comments!

There weren't enough to do anything with at the retreat so I brought them home to think about a little more. One evening, Katie and I laid them out and came up with a way to put them together with some more green hexagons as filler 'leaves'. The idea is to make up a special 'garden'. Flowers made from the smaller hexagons will be appliquéd randomly onto the big hexagons. The big hexagon garden will be appliquéd onto a large background piece of green print or maybe a large floral. Then I will quilt it and I think add some embellishment like maybe some of these little flowers, some folded fabric flowers and maybe some 3D leaves.

One thing about this project that intrigued me was just why someone would start a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt using 7" hexagons? The fabrics used were so varied in color, scale and vintage that I am thinking they were cut sometime in the 70's and they just make me feel that Grandma was growing something other than flowers in that garden! Which gives me a number of options for quilting designs and names for this quilt when it is finally completed.

This is a project that will probably take several more years to get to my finished pile but I do work on the appliqué every so often when I don't have any other handwork to do.