Garden Girl One Block Wonder Quilt

I made the top to this One Block Wonder (OBW) quilt several years ago. I wanted to try out using a panel as I love how the OBW quilts look done in a panel and using the panel too in the quilt. I struggled with placement of the hexagon blocks as to where to put them so they looked the best. Actually they aren't really blocks yet when you are playing around with the design of the quilt, they are half hexagons and then you sew them into vertical rows of half hexagons (easier to sew the top this way), so sometimes you have to cut off the block points to sew to the panel and the exterior top and bottom points get cut off too. I don't like cutting the points off! I am afraid I might cut too much or that they will look odd, but that is how they are done. Some could get appliquéd over the panel, but you have to plan and make sure things will fit correctly. I am glad this was a small panel to try my first attempt at this on. 

I did buy another panel (again years ago) that is a larger size panel, and I struggled even more with that one! I didn't plan or figure out how the sides and top and bottom would fit perfectly around the panel and well it didn't! I need to quilt that quilt, but when I appliquéd some of the blocks over the panel areas, it didn't fit at all and you could see the fabric underneath and I just gave up trying to get it right as it was too short! Not sure how I will hide those awful mistakes later after I quilt it, but it is sitting waiting to get quilted (for months now). I really wanted to fall in love with making panels like this, but I need way more practice and learning how to make sure things will fit together first and I am not sure I want to keep buying 7 panels in order to finally get one to work how I like it to work. 7 panels to buy for one quilt is expensive! And if I wanted a larger quilt, I would need to buy even more in multiples of 6 (you need 6 panels to make the hexagons, the 7th panel is to add to the quilt center if you want to add the panel). I think making OBW from just yardage of fabric is easier as you cut and sew and don't need to add a panel, but I love the panels and how they look! 

I have asked for help in the OBW Facebook groups years ago and while I sort of understood what they were saying, I still couldn't get it to work out. No one gave me a formula or said you must cut your triangles a certain size in order to fit your panel size and that is what stumped me! I didn't want a border to be added around the panel in order for the hexagons to fit it. I liked the blended look and a border would pop the panel out and be more obvious. So I think my OBW quilts are over and done with! I think making the 4-Patch Posey style would be easier and cheaper as you are cutting 4 squares for each block instead of 6 triangles that become hexagons and squares would be easier to layout to fit the panel and easier to figure how large to make the 4-patch blocks too. So I may try one to see. 4PP's don't have the same kaleidoscope look since they are square, but much easier to cut and sew.

Okay, let's get back to this quilt. I put it together the best I could with what I had and added a border to make it large enough to donate to Project Linus, which I did. It was a practice quilt for me and so I hope some little girl will receive and love it.

Can you see the panel?

This is the panel I started with.

I love sewing the hexagons to form a kaleidoscope look. You never know how they will look and you can turn the triangles 3 times to see which block looks best before you start to sew them.

Here on the left you can see the block sewn and the right is the panel where those flowers were cut from. Placing the blocks near the panel looks as though the flowers danced out of the panel alongside it.

I will try this technique using 4-patch blocks next time and see how I like it that way. Still need to quilt my larger OBW that has been around for years and years now. 

This is how I felt working on the OBW quilts!!!!

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