Progress on the Canada Goose Panel One Block Wonder

This was the beginning of putting all those hexagons on the wall around the goose to see what I had.  I was overwhelmed at this point by the sheer number.  I knew the brown was kind of overwhelming everything.  I also knew that I didn't want those words (Realtime) showing on the final piece.  Each of these hexies is two halves with a thread in the middle holding them together.

I made the mistake of first putting the goose on one of my design walls and then had to remove all the hexagons and replace the panel across the two design walls so I would have enough room to work.  I have no idea how  you would make one of these without a large design wall.

I think I have placed about all the hexies in this picture.  Still hadn't measured the height or width and determined how many hexies I REALLY needed!

Here I have sewn the hexagons on the left side together.

I have sewed all the rows together and placed them over the panel matching the middle hexagons with the ones on the sides -- the tricky part when  you haven't measured anything to begin with!

Here are the four sections before they are attached to the panel and now comes the tricky part!!

I hand appliqued down the hexagons on the top and the ones on the bottom as I wanted to preserve as many hexagons intact as possible as I was going to trim off the tops and bottoms.  I had to trim down the panel and really work at sizing it so I wouldn't lose any of the mallards or the Canada goose when trimming.  You have to match those partial blocks on the bottom as you can see here.  I must have done a good job of measuring and placing as it came together with no problem although I had to trim about 6 inches of the width and did a pleat on the bottom to cover up the words which I didn't want.  It isn't noticeable at all.

The top is done!!  It measures about 62 inches wide and 72 inches long.  Eventually I will get quilting on this but that will wait a bit as I like to think through that especially with a piece like this one.

These are the hexagons that I had left.

I will make another quilt with these for the charity group.

I decided I wouldn't do this arrangement!

These are made from the 1 1/2  squares that I cut from the ends of the hexagon strips.  They will probably end up as potholders or a tote bag.  I have 27 altogether.

Lessons learned:

1.  Determine at the beginning the exact size of the panel that you are planning on using.  Use this as a rough measure of how wide you should cut  your strips so that your hexagons will fit across and down the panel without having to trim large amounts of the panel.

2.  Don't keep the hexies together with a thread like I did.  I had read this was a clever way to keep them together.  It makes them very difficult to handle in large quantities.  Use a pin in the middle to hold the two sides together as they don't wiggle then..

3. Don't get overwhelmed and keep your camera very very handy as this gives you a better idea of where you are.  It points out where the out of place hexies are.  Once I started doing that a lot, it started coming together.

4.  Pile the hexies in small piles by color so you can quickly exchange pieces easily.

5.  Attach the panels to the top and bottom first and then add the sides.  For some reason, this was not obvious to me but I read it on someone else's blog.

This may seem very obvious but when you are overwhelmed, you don't think quite a clearly as you should!