November #fussycuttingsewalong

I have been participating in a year-long sewalong on Instagram, hosted by the lovely Naomi Clarke. Every week, we make one hexie flower, with a monthly theme and weekly prompts of different kinds of fussy cutting. November's theme was Thankfulness.

Honestly, I struggled for inspiration this month. I don't work well with very abstract themes, I prefer something more concrete. The first week's was freestyle for Armistice Day. I chose to do a sunset scene, inspired by the poem that goes 'at the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them'. I fussy cut birds in.the sky to represent freedom and spirits soaring free.

The next three are more personal things I am thankful for. For central motifs week, I chose baby clothes to represent my three kids.  For pattern matching week, I did Spidey as a tribute to the late, great Stan Lee. And finally for framed motif week, I did a flower dedicated to my Dad, a maths professor, who helped us buy our own house earlier this year.

My plan for all 52 hexie flowers is to put them into a quilt together, surrounded by greens and browns to give the impression of a forest. The layout comes from this sketch which I did as part of the #30quiltdesigns2018 challenge I mentioned in my previous post.

I have started basting the green hexies. The lighting in this photo isn't great, but I do like the way it's coming together.

I deliberately challenged myself to select a background that didn't use white or black as the neutral element. I am pleased with my choice.

Only one more month of hexie flowers to make, and then I can put it all together!