You may remember back at the very beginning of Covid, we here in Victoria (Australia) were experiencing a lot of lockdowns… The sewing community went crazy with an unprecedented number of people locked indoors and looking for new hobbies.
Enter the timeless hexagon, add a sprinkle of ‘stitchy’ dust and the Daisy Hexies pattern was created! A simple little covid lockdown project with the most un-refined Facebook live class you’ve ever seen and this little pattern and its Pre-Transferred Panel became one of my most popular and best selling patterns yet!
I slowly stitched along with my hexagons in the background, not giving them much more thought after all the stitchy peeps were well on their Hexie- adventures… until a customer asked me what the next step was… when should she stop? How many hexagons was TOO many hexagons?! Shit!
I didn’t have the stamina to make a bed sized quilt of 1″ Hexagons. To be honest, I’m not sure that I believed the rest of the world in it’s Covid themed mania really needed the added stress of a gajillion tiny hexagons either. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE a hexagon, but I only love it until I’m bored with it and want to try something else, ya’ know?!
Luckily Danni from Eppiflex reached out about the amazing Clamshell Guides that she’d designed. These guides work with the Clamshell Templates and fit snuggly into the guide to help you with placement before sewing them. Not only do they make sewing clamshells soooo much easier, but they also feature stencil like designs on them for stitching – Ahhhhmazing right!
After a little sketching, digitising and all the technical stuff that Danni and the team at Eppiflex do to get it done – the Amy Kallissa Clamshell Guides complete with more daisy stitcheries were released. It was the perfect opportunity to add more Liberty and stitchy details to the Daisy Hexies.
These clamshell borders were sooooo easy to put together using the Clamshell Guide, and was actually pretty addictive.
I also took the opportunity to test out another Eppiflex shape and added some sweet little orange peel stars in the corners – these are just appliquéd onto the small block and sewn in, but I do love that it’s another separate element to the project.
I finished the quilt off with a Liberty border and some pre-made Liberty Bias Binding before doing some very basic machine quilting around the hand stitched elements.
So what started out as a simple Covid lockdown online class has developed into sort of an English paper piecing mini sampler featuring sweet stitch-y details; and the pattern is FINALLY here and ready to launch! I was lucky enough that my gorgeous friend Nicky Cawood of Everyday Nicky had a free day to photograph some new designs for me at Picardy Garden here in Gippsland, so the pattern booklet is full of beautiful and inspirational photos with close ups of fabric and details, together with easy-to-follow graphics for piecing and construction – that’s my specialty!
You can see the requirements list and start hunter-gathering for the Daisy Hexies quilt now, and get both the Pattern Booklet and the Downloadable PDF Pattern when it launches on 13th April 2023 – HERE or ask for it at your local quilt store!
Happy stitching!
Amy x
Jenny LeMarshall says
Love it. What a great scrappy happy quilt
Sharon Schreyer says
Absolutely gorgeous Amy. Love it!! 🥰
Vicki Hams says
I love the story! I also feel special that I watched this quilt’s development. 💕. It’s just beautiful.