Monday, August 03, 2009

Sidetracked

I've gotten lots of great comments and suggestion for handpiecing the hexagons. Inklingo seems to be a favorite BUT, I have the GO hexagon Die which is so quick and easy that I'm using it to cut mine.

Other people suggested marking the sewing lines or but I'll admit I'm lazy and am just eyeballing them - it seems to be working OK so far. I've ordered Jinny Beyer's book on handpiecing from Amazon and it should be here tomorrow or Wednesday and I can't wait but in the meantime I'm playing. I made a 2nd red flower which turned out well.

I found a cute little table topper pattern but it's made with 1.25 inch hexagons and I have one and 1.5 inch ones so I'm not sure what size I want to use if I decide to make it. In the meantime, I drew up a mini quilt in EQ6 so I could play.


One of the best comments was from Jay suggesting that I assemble the hexagons in rows. Well after doing the first flower below with the smaller 1 inch hexagons, I decided to try it and it's much easier (at least so far). I was lucky to come across a link from the Quilter's Cache demonstrating it after reading Jay's comment. And yes, I am handpiecing these but I've been sitting at my sewing table to do them.

So while I have quilting, binding, and piecing to do on other quilts, here I am sidetracked by hexagons.


Email me

9 comments:

Vicky F said...

Your side-track is perfectly understandable. These little hand-pieced beauties could go with you when you travel.
I'm not sure I could trust myself eyeballing those, though.
Vicky F

YankeeQuilter said...

i didn't realize you were doing such little ones! They are looking good!

*karendianne. said...

Mary,

Yesss! I'm with you and I'm an eye-baller, too. Gosh, this is really fun to see. I'm smiling.

*karendianne.

di said...

You could try using the 1/4" tape made for hand quilting to mark your seam allowance - it's easy to use and can be used several times before it fails to stick. No lines to draw! Looks like fun!

quiltmom anna said...

Looks like you are having fun Mary- I just posted a link to your blog on my newest post. I am in the process of making your Wonky Rails and wanted others to know about your lovely patterns. Thanks for sharing your expertise.
Regards,
Anna
you can find me at quiltmomsjourney.blogspot.com

jan said...

Hi Mary,
doing them in rows is a much more sensible way to make these up, just remember your pattern, mark off as you go along so you dont get one in the wrong place, although they are so small it woudlnt be too hard to backwards stitch - if you get my drift. lol Jan I do admire you, HOW small??

JoAnne said...

Instead of drawing lines, just draw the crosshairs at the intersection of each side. Does that make sense? Just draw about 1/2 inch from the raw edge on the seam line.

Ann said...

Hey - it's a new toy so of course you are sidetracked. Didn't you make a commitment to ease up a bit this summer and give yourself a "gotta do" break?

Mary said...

Great idea to sew them in rows. I have some that I made with English Paper Piecing and gave up putting them into a whole quilt of Hexagons so they are handsewn to 6.5" squares for a quilt. I like to do them when I ride in the car. I also have the plastic templates for Eng PP and I like that I can remove them so easy.