The hexies are back + giveaway

For some reason whenever I take my English Paper Piecing hexagons out I think of this Justin Timberlake song (may not be 100% SFW, depending on where you work ;) ) So yes after a winter hiatus I'm bringing Hexies back & there's a small giveaway of 1" hexagon templates too!

At the Fat Quarterly retreat last summer I caught the English Paper Piecing bug and made quite a few 'flowers' using 1.25" hexagon template. To me EPP'ing is typically a slow craft. The Hexagon flower project  may take years to finish but that's ok. I have now started a smaller project (a pillow) with some of the 1" hexagon paper templates my friend Paloma sent me. Paloma has just started selling these in her shop and for a very fair price too: $2.50 per 100 templates.

Obviously I had to try Paloma's templates first before telling you about them and they work absolutely fine for me. They have 6 sides of equal length (which may sound obvious, but trust me: it isn't) and the paper is not too thin and not too thick. I know Paloma has quite a few templates in stock so why not treat yourself to a pack (or 2)? Other template sizes may be available in the future.

If you'd like a chance to win a pack of Paloma's 1" hexagon templates, please leave a comment on this post before Saturday 13th of July, 12 AM (Amsterdam time).   (comments are closed, winner will be announced tomorrow the 14th of July). Be sure to leave an e-mail address or other trail so I can trace you if you're the lucky winner. If I'm not able to contact you, I'll pick another winner.  I also would love to hear what you would make with these paper templates!

I'm going totally scrappy with my hexagon pillow, using small but cute scraps I saved from the bin. Some scraps are recent, some are years old. There is even a hexagon made from some of Zoe's old PJ pants! One pack of 100 templates is definitely enough to make a small to medium size pillow front. :)

Craft-on-the-go-2: hexies

Besides my Alice in Wonderland embroidery I also took my hexies with me on holiday! Fabric, thread (several colours), needles and scissors all fitted nicely into the cookie tin I bought while I was in London earlier this year. :) It turned out to be a perfect crafty holiday activity. I sewed my hexagon-flowers in the sun, in the cottage, in the car... The Heather Ross cat ones are possibly my favorites!

And these are all the hexies I made so far! Not entirely sure what I will do with them though...so I'm just soldiering on until I find the perfect pattern. The Hexy MF is still a very tempting option of course.

For my embroidery peeps: on the &Stitches blog we have a great series called Summer Bloggin'  you need to check out if haven't already. We had great posts from Julie about making mini-samplers and last week DoubleT wrote her first post about Blackwork embroidery. Very inspiring stuff!

In a few days time I will post some photos of the 'Lucky' Bunny embroidery I'm still working on. I have a new camera now and I hope that I will be able to show you some nice details!

Hexa go-go

I pre-ordered Hexa go-go pretty soon after I came back from the Fat Quarterly retreat in London last month. I knew it was a book I would enjoy not just because of the subject but also because it is written by Tacha who tried to teach me English Paper Piecing at the Retreat.

Detail of the Cat tails Quilt

The first part of the book covers the basics of English Paper Piecing, what materials to use, how to baste, sewing techniques etc. You can use various shapes with EPP but, as the title already suggests, it's all about hexies in this book. I happen to love hexies so I'm not complaining. Photos like the one above make my heart sing. :)

There are 16 quilted projects in the book, 9 of them larger sized quilts. This (huge!) Union Jack Quilt is one of my favourite projects from the book.

And this is what pieced together in the past few weeks. Still not sure what I will do with these but I'm sure to find some inspiration in Tacha's book. :)

Crazy for hexies

After my workshop two weeks ago I was nearly an English Paper Piecing convert. However the project that I was working on became a little bit frustrating. There was lots of unpicking, one sad looking paper pieced diamond and too much visible thread in the seams. My basting wasn't all that great either. I knew I had a small stack of paper hexagon templates in my craft stash and decided to give them a go before giving up on English Paper Piecing all together. I'm happy to say that it was the right decision! I love sewing these hexagons together and they don't look bad at all.

I don't have a plan for these yet, they are quite small (1.25 inch p/side) so I will need to sew lots of these together to make a quilt. If you love hexies too, be sure  to check out Katy's Hexy MF sew along. (named after a Prince song apparently. Katy has her own special way of giving beautiful quilts odd names) If you haven't done any English Paper Piecing yet and you're interested in learning, have a look at this tutorial (this is just one, google and you'll find many more). It describes pretty much how I make mine except that my stitches are a lot tinier. Not sure if doing many tiny stitches has an advantage but it's just the way I make them. :)