Or, maybe I should title this post, why I’ve lost my mind.
About a week ago, I started making paper pieced hexagons. It’s not really anything new; I’ve been sewing them onto bags that I make for several years now, but something must have broken in my brain because I couldn’t stop.
“I must make all the mini, half inch hexagons, and then join them into a fabulous quilt!”
So here’s my progress after about a week. It turns out that it takes a LOT of little hexagons to make a quilt. Even if I made it just big enough for my feet.
And honestly, I knew that. I just thought it would be an awesome project to tote around all summer and help me to use up the scraps I’ve been hoarding keeping for projects such as this. (Oh the scraps. I’ve got too many, but I can’t bear to part with them. I’ll write about them soon.)
I’m a pretty quick handsewer, and I’m pretty neat too, but I’m surprising myself at how slow going they are. I figured I could whip out a few blocks out each evening, but to paper piece the hexies, then to sew the three rounds per block have taken more time than I thought it would. I just haven’t thought any of this out. The one thing that is helping me though, are the pre-cut hexagon papers that I purchased. I picked up a small package of them from Paper Pieces at an American Quilter’s Society Quilt Show last summer, but I blew through them quickly. I ordered a bulk pack of 1500 1/2″ pre-cuts and they’re so nice. Before, I always just made a template and then traced and cut out the hexagons myself. These are beyond awesome.
This is the summer project that I started that will take me until I receive my AARP card to even come close to finishing it. In the back of my mind, I keep telling myself, “you know, if you hand piece this whole thing, you’re going to have to hand quilt it too.”
Nevermind. Push the finish date back until I’m 80 instead.
I have the same Hexie disease!
Funny you should post on this. I’m taking a break from the hand quilting of a large lap sized “grandmother’s flower garden quilt” that my husband’s grandmother hand pieced many years ago. She finished the top, but then nothing else and no one else in his family quilts, so I volunteered to applique it onto some borders (so I wouldn’t have to bind it around all the hexigons) and am now 17/75 flowers done with the quilting… and at the rate I’m going, it’s going to be a while until I finish, too! Her hexigons weren’t that small though, maybe 1 inch finished? Yours are beautiful, though!
I, too, am crazy with the hexagons! It’s a great on-the-go project. We vacationed in Michigan last week and I took my hexies and worked on them in the car and on the beach. I didn’t get as far as I’d hoped but I did get about 100 hexagons made. I’m much quicker at making the hexagons than I am at sewing them together.
What size are your hexagons? Mine are 2 inches. I created a template and I’m happy to share it – it’s on my blog here: http://www.couplemorehours.com/2013/04/i-am-starting-hexagon-quilt.html I copied 20 sheets of the template onto card stock.