Aunt Martha's Hexagon Wreath - With a Swear Word or Two

"Aunt Martha" quilt kits first appeared in 1930.  The pre-cut kits did not stay in the market for long but Aunt Martha's pattern books and catalogues had a long print run from 1931 all the way to 1977.  You can find out more about Aunt Martha from Wilene Smith's research.

I now have pdf copies of a few of the Aunt Martha books.  The following one was one of the later books, printed in 1960.

One of the patterns is for a Hexagon Wreath, and I thought that a single block would make a nice sample quilt. This is the entire set of instructions; no You Tube tutorials or group forums, but how hard can it be?

I used English paper piecing to make sixteen hexagon flowers and sixteen leaves.  All I had to do was arrange them in a wreath and sew them together.  But I couldn't for the life of me make them fit together. They would only join into a six sided wreath, not an eight sided one.  After an hour of frustration I took a closer look at the pattern.

In the hand drawn picture, the hexagons aren't quite hexagons.  The hexagon flower at the top has the points facing towards the centre, but so do the ones on the side.  It is an optical illusion.  Great work Aunt Martha!

I unstitched the green leaves, placed them under the hexagons and stretched the wreath a bit.  Then some hand quilting and a binding.  I am glad I only had to make one!