A Prairie Home Quilts

This is the pattern I laid out in EQ5 after joining the Great Hexagon Quilt Along. Some of the quilters there are doing a diamond hexagon mosaic quilt based on this antique one. [Click on the picture there to see the larger view of this quilt!] The pattern name for this mosaic hexagon quilt is Martha Washington’s Flower Garden according The Quilt Index.

I like to name my projects so I’ve decided to name this one I’m Not Martha. The most obvious reason is that — I’m no Martha Stewart. [shocking, I know.]  My children can attest to that. My mother would probably chime in there too.  Do my kids care that I’m not more like Martha? Nah.  Do I want to be more like Martha?  Nope.  [There is the whole biblical Mary vs. Martha analogy working into the naming of the quilt, but I'll save that for another time. . .]

In the spirit of not being like Martha Stewart and also as a reminder for me of times that we currently find ourselves living in, I decided to see how frugally I could make this quilt.  I want it to have an antique look  as a  reminder or link to the past also [definitely not as 1930-ish looking as the EQ5 drawing!] so I’m trying to go with as many vintage-looking and reproduction fabrics as I can.  And since my Field of Flowers hexagon quilt is .75″ hexagons and pretty much from scraps, I decided to make this one with 1.25″ hexagons which requires bigger pieces of fabric.  There will be no looking in the scrap bins for suitable fabrics for this one.  I’m sure for some of you this wouldn’t be much of a challenge because you could just go shop your stash, but my frugal ways and being a single parent of 4 has not allowed for large stash building.  What will probably trip me up is needing a certain color of fabric and not having the money at the moment to be able buy any, but I will persevere.  *smile*

The challenge then for this quilt is to spend as little money as possible, give it an antique look, have it be a controlled scrappy quilt by making 7 diamonds each of color — red, blue, yellow, green, orange, and purple, use gray around all the diamonds, use black fabric for the center of each diamond, use 1 red fabric as a connector in the center of each of the 6 diamonds and find a special fabric to use as the flower in the very center.  I have my work cut out for me!

I have pulled the fabrics from my meager [and I do mean, m-e-a-g-e-r] stash that will be suitable to use and started printing hexagons for the diamonds.  I will definitely need to purchase or swap for fabrics to coordinate with what I have.  I plan to purchase only fabric that is on sale though.  I have yardage of a gray muslin-like fabric that I bought several years ago to use on my original GFG quilt design that I’m not using anymore because that design morphed into  my Field of Flowers quilt.  I’ve got that fabric cut and have printed some of the 550 hexagons that go around all the diamonds.  Oh, and did I mention that I want to do 1 hexagon diamond a week with the goal to have this top together a year from now??  So far I’ve spent $12.  I purchased 6 FQs for $1 each and spent $6 on 3 FQs for $1 each plus shipping.  I have 1 yellow diamond hexagon done.