Giveaway - More Hexagon Charm Packs

The New Year inches closer and closer but it's not too late to enter the giveaway for my brand new Hexagon Charm Packs.

I've made lots more pre-cut hexagons for you to chose from. These are large hexagons, the same size as Moda's regular square charm packs. This batch includes Good Fortune, Sassy, Little Apples and others, plus the not yet released California Girl. You can find more details in the pbpatch store.

There'll be an Australian winner and an International winner. To enter, just read my previous post and leave a comment there before 2011 runs out. (If Blogger doesn't let you leave a comment, send me an email and I'll enter one for you.)

Good luck everyone!

Now available - Hexagon Charm Packs

Another busy week has flown by - busy in my day-job and busy at night making new products.

The new hexagon-shaped charm packs that I previewed the other day are now listed in my store. I have decided to sell them for around the same as the Australian retail price of the regular square charm packs from Moda.

Yes, that's right - a charm pack of pre-cut hexagons for the same price as the squares! (My local store sells the square ones for $17.95 and some eBay stores sell them for $15 so my hexagon ones are in between.) Ready for you to machine-sew or hand-sew without any further preparation.


I couldn't resist using another pack myself. Here's my latest charm quilt, using A Walk in the Woods by Aneela Hoey for Moda. I need lots more practice at free-motion quilting!


You might have noticed in my store that I often only have 2 or 3 packs available for each range of fabric hexagons at any one time. That doesn't mean that more aren't available, it just means I haven't made it for you yet!

I'm not a store so I don't have a lot of stock sitting on the shelves. I generally just custom-make my products when anyone orders them. If something is 'out of stock', that just means that I will custom-make it for you, so please do not hesitate to email me your requests. If the fabric is available, I'll make it for you within 24 hours.

I am determined that from the New Year on, I am going to spend a full day each weekend at my cutting table, making LOTS of stock so I can do LOTS of markets in 2012. I enjoyed getting out of Sydney so much in November to go to the Braidwood quilt event, so I want to do lots more of that.

Do you have a favourite market? I'd love to hear about it, so how about we make that the theme of a new giveaway.

This giveaway is to launch my new Hexagon Charm Packs. An Australian winner and an International winner will each receive a Hexagon Charm Pack of their choice. You can see what's available now here, but I will add more Moda ranges over the coming weeks.

Plus, each winner can nominate a friend to receive a surprise present. Keep it a secret for now, don't mention any names in your comment, just let me know their details when you win and I will send them whichever Hexagon Charm Pack you think they'd like.

To enter, leave a comment telling me about your favourite market, whether that's in Australia or overseas, a quilters market, flea market or whatever. I'll draw the winners on New Year's Day. Good luck!

First quilt made from a Hexagon Charm Pack

Here's my first attempt at doing machine-pieced hexagons. I wasn't sure how I'd go with the set-in corners but they turned out to be quite easy. I think that was because of the larger size of the hexagons.


Construction was fairly easy. I joined the columns of hexs together to make vertical strips, just like you do with square charms, then I sewed the strips together. (I think I must have turned one or two strips the wrong way though, as all the florals are now clumped together.) There's a little trick to sewing the strips together. I'll tell you more about that later.

Initially I was going to add some red hexs, but I ended up trimming the sides to make the quilt square. I used just one hexagon charm pack (Ruby by Bonnie and Camille) and it ended up at around 55cm x 55cm. I used all 42 hexs in the pack, so there was absolutely no wastage.


My first attempt at free motion quilting was a little rough, as you would expect, but I'm so proud of myself for giving it a go. I think I did too many squiggles too close together so it looks a little tight and over-quilted. I think they key is to not try so hard.

Everything I needed to know about free-motion quilting I found in RetroMummy's video tutorial here. (Well, almost everything. It took me an hour to figure out how to drop my feed dogs!) I looked at quite a few other YouTube videos as well, but all the presenters just talked about FMQ, no-one actually demonstrated it.


My stitch length varied a lot as I tried to figure out the perfect speed to go at but I know this will improve with practice. I definitely need to buy some gloves like RetroMummy's, as it was hard to manouver the fabric smoothly without them.

All in all, I am VERY pleased with the fruits of this weekend's labour. I am very very tempted to start another little quilt tonight, I'm thinking of using Walk in the Woods. The large hexagons will show off the fabrics wonderfully.

New Products - Notice something different?

I am so excited, I have a new product line for you. Notice anything different about these Moda charm packs?


That's right, they're hexagonal! They are the same size as the regular square charm packs (these are 5 inches from point to point), but they are already die-cut into hexagons (with 2 1/2 inch sides).

Now before you rush off to your local patchwork store looking for them, I have to tell you that they are ONLY available here at Possum Blossom Patchwork because they are all die-cut by ME.

They're not listed in my store just yet as I've only just finished cutting this batch, but I will list them over the next week. (If you can't wait, or if you want me to cut any other Moda ranges, send me an email.)

But first, I'm going to crack open one (or two) of these charm packs and spend the rest of the day sewing. I've never machine-sewn hexagons before. Is there a trick to it? I will find out and report back to you.

I am also tempted to try some free-motion quilting, I've never done that before, but I guess I better take it one step at a time and piece the hexagons first.

Anyway, I am very very happy with these hexagon charm packs, and I can't wait for my next fabric delivery to arrive so I can make some more for you.