Frosty’s GO! Delight
by Paulette Doyle of Sweet P Quilts and Creations
Hello, my name is Paulette, I’m a retired primary school teacher from Vancouver Island and a busy blogger who has been quilting for almost ten years. Read more about blogger…
About a year and a half ago, I was lucky enough to become an AccuQuilt GO! mama! I absolutely love my AccuQuilt GO!® Fabric Cutter so I was thrilled to receive the invitation to feature a project using the GO! Hexagons die.
First of all, the AccuQuilt GO! is quick, accurate, precise, and most of all, it easily cuts classic shapes with curves. One of the first GO! dies that I used was the GO! Rob Peter to Pay Paul (55068) die, which has so many lovely curves. I have always admired quilts using this classic design but never imagined I could do it. That is until I tried my GO! Rob Peter to Paul die with my GO! Fabric Cutter. The proof can be seen on the header picture of my blog, Sweet P Quilts and Creations. If you follow my blog, then you know how I feel about my AccuQuilt GO! Fabric Cutter. I absolutely love it! I also love hexagons, so it was a no brainer to share my insights on this amazing die.
Now you all know that the mighty GO! Fabric Cutter slices through several layers of quilter’s cotton in one crank of the handle, but did you know that it also cuts wool? I thought I would do something a little different and kick it up a notch by doing the entire project in 100% wool fabric with all the cutting done with my AccuQuilt GO! Fabric Cutter. SEW here we… GO!
First, I grabbed my stash of blue wool. A lot of this wool was either recycled or hand dyed before we left for this year’s snow birding trip. I precut my wool into squares about 1/2" larger than the biggest hexagon shape on the die. I ironed on some Heat and Bond Lite. This product works well to stabilize the wool and keep it from fraying.
I then grabbed my GO! Hexagons-2", 3", 5" (55011) die and the GO! Holiday Medley (55043) die and ran the wool through my AccuQuilt GO! Cutter. I recommend starting with one layer of wool as this particular wool is very thick and fluffy, and then you can work your way up to more layers. The GO! Fabric Cutter cut the wool effortlessly and could have easily taken more layers of wool. Now if you have ever hand cut wool hexagons (the old fashioned way), then you know that you can never get a perfect cut as at least one of the hexagons manages to cut wonky. With the GO!, they are perfectly accurate and each one fits right up to the other. Using your GO!, cut out 12 blue hexagons and four white hexagons.
I cut out 12 blue hexagons and four creamy-white wool hexagons, which is a total of 16 hexies in just a few minutes.
I also cut out two wool snowflakes using the same creamy-white wool using the GO! Holiday Medley die. Imagine cutting this snowflake by hand—it only took me two seconds to run the die through the GO! Cutter. It would have taken me an hour or more to cut it out using scissors and it would not have been this perfect or pretty.
Arrange the blocks into a beautiful design so you can begin sewing.
Then arrange your hexagons in any formation you choose. Begin whip stitching using thread and small stitches. Once you’re finished, you’ll notice the coating of Heat and Bond on the back. Go ahead and flip it over and you’ll see the front of the runner that looks very festive for this time of year.
I whip stitched the hexagons together using ordinary thread and small stitches. I was so glad that there was Heat and Bond on the back as it prevented any of the wool from fraying.
Next you’ll need to secure the seams even more and hide your small whip stitches. You can use a matching white wool thread, Perle Cotton, embroidery floss, or even crochet cotton. I used a white wool thread and loved the effect. I stitched the Fly Stitch and went around each block. Do not stitch the edge of the runner to complete this step. I then tack stitched each snowflake to the ends of the runner.
The next step is to secure the seams even more and hide the small whip stitches.
I then tack stitched each snowflake to the ends of the runner and turned the white hexagons into snowmen.
It was easy to do and you can easily add other embellishments to your snowmen. You could sew on a triangle of orange wool for his carrot nose and two button eyes.
Now you’re ready to convert your white hexagons into snowmen. Use an orange triangle for his carrot nose and two buttons for his eyes.
For the backing, I laid the whole runner on top of a large piece of white wool and cut around the shape of the runner. With this pinned in place, I then blanket stitched the edges of the mat, securing it all together.
Instead of quilting it, I stitched small snowflakes through the layers. This holds the whole thing together nicely.
It’s your choice whether you would like to quilt it or you can do as I did and stitch small snowflakes throughout the table runner going through all of the layers.
Finished Snow GO! Hexie Runner
SEW there you have it, an easy project for the cold days of winter--the Snow GO! Hexie Runner. So while my husband and I lay around catching the winter rays in Palm Springs, I hope you will fire up your GO! and dust off your GO! Hexagons-2", 3", 5" and GO! Holiday Medley dies. This is truly an easy and fun project for the weekend.
Watch Video:
Introduction to AccuQuilt GO! Hexagons
(55011) & GO! Equilateral Triangles
(55079)
Watch Video:
Introduction to the AccuQuilt GO! Hexagon-9"
Die (55098)
About Blogger:
Paulette is from Vancouver Island in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. She is a wife and mother of three adult daughters. She is a retired primary school teacher and a busy blogger who has been quilting for almost ten years. Paulette is the blogger behind Sweet P Quilts and Creations. Paulette and her husband are lucky enough to be Snow birders. This means when the rains come to the Coast, they load up their two cockapoos dogs, pack up the 5th wheel and head for the sun for 3-5 months usually in the Palm Springs area. There’s no doubt Paulette and her husband love their retirement. For more GO! inspired projects, check out her blog.