Best Laid Plans Quilt

There is a reason for the name of this quilt.  It has turned into one very weird experience!  I am supposed to speak on stack and whacks at a local quilt club this month.  I have made about every variation of this quilt except or a new one I have seen on the internet. To me, it is one of the nicest of the genre.  It is made from a scenic panel and then the stack and whacks that were made from obviously six additional copies of the panel surrounded this central image.  I wasn't going to buy any more fabric but found this vase in my stash and I had 16 repeats of it so thought - what the heck!!  It was difficult to stack as I usually pin along the edge and the edge had no definable objects to pin through the layers.  I did do the pinning and got a very even stack.  I then cut it up into 4 inch wide triangles -- 6 of each (or so I thought).  As I was auditioning which sides of the 60 degree triangles I would use, I noticed that every other one in the stack was different -- I had three of one triangle and three of the other.  I thought I must have put in some of the panels upside down. When I looked a little more closely I noticed -- uh oh.  On each width of the fabric, there were two vases and one was the mirror image of the other!!  So inadvertently I managed to a unique new stack and whack!!  This picture shows the two versions of the vase and the beginnings of sewing the blocks together.

So here all the blocks are done and there is the perfect amount to do this arrangement.  At this point I thought it was going to take some math to figure out how to get everything to line up and how much additional fabric I would need surrounding the hexies to have them match up with the center panels.

First I had to decide which fabrics to use for the finishing triangles though.  I assumed I would use the green that was surrounding the panels in the yardage -- there were four to five inch strips on either side of the panels.

No, that is just awful!!  So won't use the green but may see if I have enough for an outside border or binding -- far away from the hexies!

Next I thought black as that is the background color in the panels.  No, definitely not!!  The gold in the frame is what the problem is with whatever I decide to do as it doesn't match with any of the flowers in the panel and yet is very outstanding.

I finally decided that this off-white subtle print would work the best.  I randomly decided that I wanted about 1 1/2 inches between the hexies and the top and bottom of the panels.  It just looked right somehow.

Imagine my shock when I also discovered that I needed 1 1/2 inches between the vertical hexies so that they fit right next to the panel.  Furthermore, when I placed the line of hexies next to the panel with its edge pieces, they also fit exactly!!  So I ended up not having to doing any subtle fixing to make everything turn out even.  I have no idea why this worked but I am not complaining!  Now just need to add some stuff to the sides and a border all around and consider the top done.  It will probably end up about 44 x 60 when completed.  It will definitely be a giveaway one!!  It will be a good show and tell for my talk though.

The hexie blocks are three-peats and are certainly different from any other stack and whack I have done!