Wednesday, April 22, 2015

"Recycling" Vintage Hexie Quilts

Recycled Hexie Quilts: Using Vintage Hexagon Quilts in Today's Quilts  ins't the most gripping title but once you see Mary W. Kerr's quilts you will be hooked. I was prowling eBay looking for Hexie quilts within the hour. I have a sudden need to accumulate cutter quilts, particularly those based on hexagons!

Kerr first presents vintage quilts using Hexagon patterns, including Grandmother's Flower Garden variations, Seven Sisters Hexagon, flower baskets, floral wreathes, stars, lozenge, and mosaic diamonds. Scrappy and planned patterns are included.

Then we see 52 new quilts made with 'recycled' Hexie quilts. I already love using vintage textiles in quilts. I have, after all, 800 handkerchiefs, four drawers of old laces and trims and ribbons, a big drawer of embroidered linens, and who knows what else squirreled away.

Kerr demonstrates how to use Hexies as sashing, blocks, or borders combined with vintage embroidered linens, embroidered quilt blocks, and applique blocks. They are just wonderful!

I loved her use of cutter hexie tops as wide sashing and borders around vintage embroidered linens. A modern looking quilt can be made by floating hexie 'blocks' on a solid background fabric. She also has examples of some non-hexie recycled tops. Her examples range from pillows to bed sized quilts.

A chapter on how to work with vintage Hexie textiles can be applied to other pieced tops. Labels, quilting, and using fusibles also merit chapters. A nice step-by-step tutorial on applying crocheted doilies to a quilt is given.

The book has 148 full color photographs of inspirational quilts and is beautifully laid out.

This is not a pattern book, but you will get tips and inspiration to create your own recycled Hexie quilt project. This is a great book for the quilt guild library, too.

Mary W. Kerr is a quilt appraiser with the American Quilt Society and has published several books, teaches about vintage textiles, and restores quilts.

I received a free ebook for a fair and unbiased review.

Recycled Hexie Quilts
Mary W. Kerr
Schiffer Publishing
ISBN13: 9780764348204
$19.95 soft cover
Publication Date: April 28, 2015

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