Nutmeg: The Perfect, Undemanding, Slow Stitched EPP Quilt

Nutmeg Quilt is one of the EPP quilts from my Hexie Handbook, an e-book made up of several hexagon blocks and the quilts they make. I started stitching this quilt when I first wrote the Hexie Handbook 6 years ago! And with slow and uneven progress, in between other quilts that grabbed my attention more completely, she's finally finished. And I love her so much!

Nutmeg has been the perfect in-between project. I started with my small collection of Liberty prints, and then around 3 years ago, I bought a fat quarter bundle of Melody Miller's Stay Gold collection and realised it would complement the Liberty perfectly. I cut and basted little blocks with a single colour for the centre hexagon and diamonds, and a white or low volume print for the triangle star points. Because there were no fabric decisions to make, and because I kept the original fabric pull in the tub with the blocks and pieces in progress, it was easy to make a little progress here and there. I kept each basted block in a little ziplock bag and stitched them while waiting in the car during after-school activities, took them away with me to family holidays. When I finished a different quilt, or got stuck or bored with one, this was the perfect, easy little 'palate cleanser' to make some easy progress on while my mind mulled over the challenges of the quilt I'd been working on, or decided what to make next. Each block was simply a round of triangles and then a round of diamonds and then it was done, then added to the slowly growing pile!

I've decided it's essential for me to have quilts like this in my WIP (Work in Progress) collection. They are not quilts that excite me or draw me in for long stretches. But, the quilts that do, the ones that need lots of colour decisions, or I'm stitching in every spare moment to see if my idea will pan out the way I hope, are quilts for certain seasons. Seasons where I can carve out large chunks of time and headspace, seasons where the kids are at school and no-one's sick or injured, and other interruptions aren't arising. These little seasons magical when they arrive, but they're never guaranteed. For all the other times - the messy, interrupted, demanding, uncertain times, the times beset by grief or change or even the joy and chaos of kids home on holidays or family staying - these are the times that love a quilt like Nutmeg. A quilt without demands or deadlines, that slowly gets done a few blocks at a time, until one day, you count them all up and there's 105!

Once the quilt top was sewn up and basted, I decided on straight-line, machine quilting. It's one of my go-to quilting designs because I love it's simplicity, and also the action of it. I love getting lost in the whirr of straight lines and not having to think too much! I considered stitching on each side of the triangles because I love the way they create this allover, lacy pattern across the quilt, but I decided I would prefer it to sit flat rather than have the triangles made puffy from quilting. 

Nutmeg Quilt is one of the 16 quilt patterns in my Hexie Handbook, all quilts made from various hexagon blocks. It's full of simple quilts that are perfect for stitching through steadily. Grab your copy and the Nutmeg EPP kit below!