Extreme Knitting Redhead: The hexagon patch

Sunday, June 26, 2011

The hexagon patch

We have loads of patchwork covers that my my mum made years ago so I've never bothered doing any.

Then, the other day, I was rummaging around and I found the old templates complete with some ready cut and already used paper pieces. I played around with the shapes and I was hooked!

So I cut out lots of hexagon shapes using the front and back pages of The Times magazine, looked in my fabric store for suitable bits and I was off!

I chose fabrics that would tone in with the colour scheme in the music room and found some of the curtain material (the blue/cream pattern), some odd and ends of red furnishing fabric and some cream curtain fabrics.

People say that English paper piecing, as this method is known, is very time-consuming but I didn't find that at all. I was completely absorbed in cutting the shapes, basting them over the paper templates and then playing around with them to make a pleasing pattern.

It's going to be the front of a cushion cover.

Now I've got to sew each hexagon together, which will take some time, and I think I might outline the red and blue hexies in either cross stitch or herringbone to give them definition.

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.