May 4, 2009

I've got a basket full o' hexagons


So I've got another new obsession: making hexagons per the English paper piecing quilting method! It's really fun and easy to do. You carefully cut out a hexagon of paper (I'm using card stock because it's a little heftier), pin a slightly larger piece of fabric to it, fold over the edges and baste. You can find instructions and a template here. (Don't you just love online tutorials?)


Pretty soon you will have a growing stack of hexes! Because I love to keep busy, I find that these are a lot of fun to do while relaxing and watching TV. My husband even thinks they are cool. (That is, he thought they were cool as a great way to use up scrap fabric. He didn't seem to think it was quite so cool when I told him I'd like to get more fabric to make matching centers and borders to tie everything together into a quilt.)


I'm loving making new designs out of my fabric scraps, like this big flower made from a lot of little flowers on some Amy Butler daisy chain fabric. I only wish I had a larger fabric stash... but if you've been sewing a long time, I imagine it would be great fun to put all your scraps into hexes and quilt them. What a nice collection of memories of past projects that would be!

Finishing this quilt may take me a while, but for now I'm happily occupied sewing lots of little hexes.

6 comments:

Victoria Findlay Wolfe said...

love those hexagons! it will be years before I finish mine... Yours are looking great!

Cesia said...

Those are really neat! (I'm not sure, but they might not be quite as cool w/o the awesome photography.)

But, um ... what are they for? Forgive me, I'm a quilting virgin.

- Cesia.

Wendymoon said...

Thanks for the nice comments!

Cesia, you hand stitch the hexes together into whatever pattern you like (a popular one is Grandma's flower garden) which becomes a quilt top.

You can also join the hexes however you like and applique them onto whatever you want.

I've got another quilt started, but I'm really enjoying sewing these by hand as opposed to the machine work. We'll see which one I finish first!

Anonymous said...

I remember doing hexagons at school, all that hand sewing was a bit much for me. Good luck with your quilt.

Malissa said...

Ha! You caught hexagon fever! (It's super contagious.)

amy smart said...

Wow! Those are awesome. I am totally inspired by the hexagons - maybe I'll start myself some day!