TV project

Done some planning and decided to do a hexagon paper piecing project again. This is a bit funny as I do not like hexagons that much, however I do find the process of making them and stitching them together by hand so relaxing...ideal to do when watching a bit of TV or just for quiet time out.

I had these 2 packets of charm squares that I picked up in a sale last year together with coordinating border fabric. Have not really planned anything around size, will just do them all up and see what comes out of it. So, bought a packet of 100 hexagon paper pieces with an edge length of 2 inches size of hexagon is 4 inches). Went ahead the other day and made myself a template to cut out the material.

Carefully drew around the template that I had cut out on template plastic on my material, cut it out and continued to make a hexagon. Then it occurred to me...duh!! I did not need the plastic template at all.

All I had to do was use my trusted fabric glue pen (to hold the hexagon in place on the fabric), whack it on the square and cut around it with a generous 1/4in seam allowance.Why did this not occur to me earlier? On my last project I had this tiny hexagon template (came with those tiny hexagon shapes that I bought for that project) and painstakingly cut out all those tiny hexagons. In retrospect not really necessary. As I said before, I have very little experience with this.

This is a great time saver and makes this even more enjoyable.

Use a little fabric glue to hold the hexagon in place

Line up your ruler allowing for a generous 1/4in seam allowance

Cut around all sides

Sides ready to be folded over

I use a fabric glue pen when folding over the seam allowance rather than securing it with thread. This works well and the glue will come out in the wash. I think the only thing to watch out for is not to use excess glue closer to the edges where you are going to slip stitch  the pieces together.

The finished paper hexagon ready to be sewn together

Two hexagons slip stitched together

This is fun...made about 10 of them yesterday watching some TV...highly recommended. I wonder what this will become...


Linking up to Lorna's Let's Bee Social Linky Party over at Sew Fresh Quilts, WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced 
and  also...Fabric Frenzy Friday

Until next time

Karin

Quilt along #26

Hi all...I am feeling very unproductive compared to some other quilters in blogland. Mind you, I did have one of my migraine episodes over the weekend (why do they always cover the weekend?), so I was not able to do anything. After that we had a school meeting night, then a conference, work etc and that did not leave any time to do anything much.

However I did try the design that Wendy Sheppard demonstrated on SewCalGal's Freemotion Quilting Challenge for the month of August.

This was a fun design to try and definitely something I will use again.

Apart from this I am still going through my phase of confused indecision and lack of inspiration...not sure whether other people experience this when in between projects...nothing really grabs me and I struggle to continue where I left off with other projects. This then in itself becomes a bit of a stressor. Funny enough, this then often becomes the time when I yet again start another project! Figure that one out.

So, I decided to stop stressing, not start something new and do some planning on what to tackle next. As I don't like to sit idle I pulled out my paper piecing project from last year and do some hand sewing. This was sooooo therapeutic...just sitting there with this incredibly fiddly piece of elongated hexagons. I must say I do admire quilters who stitch by hand. When I bought the template for this at one of the shows, the woman had an entire bed quilt made out of these tiny hexagons. No, while I will finish this in the next few weeks, I don't think that I would have that amount of patience. This is incredibly work intensive.

This is what I am talking about

Paper Piecing Project in 2011

I will post some photos of how far I got along in the next few days.

Until then

Karin