Winter Games - Again!

Wow. Every 4 years we get to enjoy the beauty of skilled athletes at the top of their game! This time they are in China. This made me think of the Winter Games collection by Benartex that I featured here a few times in the past. It made its debut in 2017. I was sent 8 fat quarters and I went to town.

 I wanted to capture the special motifs of the skiers, snowboarders, and even the hot  chocolate and coffee mugs. What better way than to center the motifs in - you guessed it - mug rugs!

Paper Pieced Mug Rug: 7" x 7"

I captured some of the skis and skates in the center of the cup:

Paper Pieced mug rug #2

And I was able to get one with the snowboarder in the center.

One more mug rug

I had some leftovers from another collection that would "play nice" with my leftovers and so I pieced my small quilt of 6 hexagon blocks. They are surrounded by 30 degree triangles which gives a different look to the block. There are no y-seams, but you do need to begin with a partial seam.

Winter Games quilt: 38" x 46"

I had to create a window template (of freezer paper) in order to capture exactly what I wanted. From what was left of the fat quarter, I could only get 3 motifs in the dark gray. From flat side to flat side, the hexagon will finish to 7". The entire block measures 12" x 13-1/2" with those 30 degree triangles added.

Fussy Cutting my motif

So, I had to get 3 more blocks for this 6 block quilt. I dug around in my sewing room drawers and came up with the leftovers from making this quilt with the Nordic Holiday collection. Same colors and style. This is one of my workshop samples for Double Hexie Star.

Nordic Holiday Double Hexie Star

I cut 30 degree triangles and had some leftovers. Students sew 2 rectangles together and then cut them with a 60 degree triangle. The little cutaways were NOT thrown out.

You can see where I was going with the Double Hexie Star. The pink sides of the units above are joined to make what looks like a 120 degree kite unit. No y-seams btw.

Double Hexie Star block: 16" x 18"

I have other Spinning Pinwheel blocks made from those leftovers. Here's one:

Spinning Pinwheel using leftovers from Essence of Pearl fabrics

So - on with the games! May the best athlete win!