An Australian homage to Amanda Jean Nyberg’s Mark Twain Quilt

Amongst my New Year’s resolutions is to get back to quilting after a long break during which some horrible things happened, and some wonderful things happened. 
 
There is a lot on my ‘to do’ list for 2018, including making an EPP hexagon quilt.  

One of my favourite bloggers and quilters (Amanda Jean Nyberg @ Crazy Mom Quilts) has decided to recreate an antique hexagon quilt. You can read about her Mark Twain quilt here. She purchased the antique quilt that she is reproducing while on a visit to Hannibal, Missouri, which is the birthplace of Mark Twain.  

Coincidentally, I am re-reading (for the umpteenth time, but I can't help it because it is so good) Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent, Travels in Small Town America.  I won't repeat what Bill wrote about Hannibal way back in 1989 suffice to say that Amanda and her family seem to have had a much better experience!

Anyhoo,I decided to follow Amanda's hexie journey and make an Australian EPP  hexie quilt which must feature scraps and prints of anything that reminds me of Australia’s landscape, flora and fauna, as well as its Indigenous people and Indigenous art.  

Amanda notes that the original antique quilt that she is recreating has hexagons that are pieced, and if you look closely, you can also see that not all the hexagons in each round are from the same fabric.  

I love that because it means I can mix up scraps and hopefully keep it even more interesting.  I have some small scraps of a gorgeous fabric with colourful turtles and fish that would be great fussy cut, but I don’t have enough fabric to make one round of the block.

I bought some one-inch hexie papers from my local quilt shop and, since this is my first time, I found some scrap red quilters muslin and other Australiana scraps, and made a practice block.

This is now the first finished block because I’m thrilled with how it turned out!  Plus, the red hexagon in the centre has given my quilt a name –
 


‘Red Centre’ which is what Central Australia is called because of the reddish colour of iron oxide in the soil. 

I’ve made a few more blocks using an Indigenous Jelly Roll which I will have to supplement with other ‘Australiana’ prints.  Btw – it takes me around 10 hours to cut, baste and sew each block.



The problem with Indigenous inspired fabrics is that it is difficult to capture all of the main elements in a one-inch hexagon.  The danger is that I will end up with lots of dots (as in Indigenous dot painting) so I will have to sacrifice some fabrics in favour of fussy cutting to make sure I have enough variation. As I've done here -


This quilt is going to take a long time to make.  Very daunting. To give myself a bit of leeway I haven’t decided how big it will be.

My aim is to finish the top by Australia Day (26 January 2019). 

Wish me luck!

Hubblebird 

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday.

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