Hexies by Hand


My friend Val at: http://myplvl.blogspot.com/ gave me some delightful stained glass hexie templates when I visited her recently. I promised I'd start a Grandmas Flower Garden hand pieced quilt by the end of July.

Last week was the monthly sit and sew day for my quilt club, I usually take redwork embroidery to save packing up a sewing machine and all the supplies that go along with that, but I decided to finally get my sewing kit ready and start hand piecing!

So I printed this tutorial as a pdf: http://www.buttonsandbutterflies.com/2013/03/english-paper-piecing-tutorial.html just to refer to the finer points if needed, it was great, the best tip was to punch a hole in the card hexie to make it easier to remove! I also packed needles, bobbins of thread (because they are small), a small pair of scissors, the templates (card and stained glass), paper clips (another great tip from the tutorial) and the fabric hexies I had precut.

I used fabric from my scrap bin because I wasn't sure I could do this. But it is easier than I thought! It took me about 5hrs to make these three flowers. Now the fabric is all cut and the sewing kit organized I can take it anywhere! I have a 16 hr flight to Australia next month, I think I'll take them along.