Winding Down the Year

We are all so busy this time of year that I want to take a minute now and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year. My sister used to always say: May the best of this year be the worst of next year. I like that idea!

Half hexagon project

This is how far I've come with my most recent hexie project. I made a new pattern, and have tested two different ways of putting the colours together. You can read more about this and find a tutorial on my blog. Please give me a word if you use my pattern. I'd love to see it in other colours too.

New SAL Hexagon Design

The 13th Redwork Hexagon is up on my stitching blog, if you are following along.

Cutting Your Own Hexagons

Geta has a tutorial and .pdf template download here for cutting four sizes from 1-inch to 2-inch hexagons. It looks like a winner to me - the only cost is for the kind of paper you like to use for yours. Since the SAL is 2-inch hexagons, I'm going to get the kind of paper I like and try this out next week. You can get other sizes by playing with your printer to reduce or enlarge the ones given. Be sure to read the whole post to see the best, fastest way to use the templates.

 

Well, duh! I meant to include the link for you all. Here it is: Geta's Hexagon Cutting Post. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, Margaret!

RHE: Design 12

I've posted Design 12 on CQ4Fun. This is a little different. There will be more animals and florals later, but I needed to see how these would fit together, whether it will go the way my mental vision does, so I made the vine I want to use on the white single-hexagon rows between the red blocks. That's the design that's up today.

Not Mine, but Cute!

I didn't want to steal her picture, so you'll have to go look at this cute mug rug with hexies! Darcibee's Flickr. I'm thinking of birthday and Christmas gifts and this turned up. I can do this!

Something different

Today I want to share papier pieced "hexie" pattern from Kristy at Quiet Play. She designed many cute patterns, this one is  June BOM And Sew On... and it is called A Stich in Time.  I wasn´t sure to post it here, but Susan from Desertsky Quilting left so kind message at my blog so I´m doing it. I hope you like something hexie-themed but different.

And here are all my finished BOMs together.

RHE: New Block Design Up

I have posted the next block design for the redwork hexagon embroidery SAL on CQ4FUN. Here's a small version, but at the cq site, you can link to a .pdf download, or drag off the .jpg.

Although I design these for the RHE, feel free to use them in crazy quilting designs, too.

"Fireworks"...

For quite some time, I was playing with this idea of using my colourful Batiks in an EPP project, yet I was still looking for a special layout... when I stumbled upon Jessica's stars, I just knew I found it ;>)

By the way, as you might know, Jessica just published a veeery nice book about EPP. In my opinion, this book is a MUST for every EPP lover. It's full of tips, patterns, layouts, etc... (No personnal interest, it's just that I think credit must be given when deserved).

So, back to my Batiks, I could now easily see them as stars, representing fireworks on a dark (night) background. This is how I see it :
- 7 stars appliqued on a dark (night) background,
- with 1 multicolored star in the center,
- and 6 other ones around, each of a specific color,
- then a multicolored hexies border, to remind the center star.
See what I mean ? ;>)

So here's my center star :

I'm using 3/4" paper pieces, and I'm having so much FUN with this project! I've already selected other Batiks for the 6 other stars, and they're all cut out... Wish me luck!

See you next time, with some progress on this project. ENJOY your piecing, my friends!

NADINE

PS : anyone wishing to join me in this fun project is heartfully welcome!

Hello!

Thank you for letting me join this fantastic group! I had been toying around with the idea of starting a hexagon quilt and in the process, I found this blog. I read it from start to finish, and after that I was hooked. I had been bit by the hexie bug and I needed to make one!

I dove in on the day I started to have timeable contractions for my fourth baby. I wanted something to do with my hands that would keep my mind calm. Bonus, it gave me something to do at the hospital while we waited to go home.

3 months later and I have just under 900 hexagons completed. I have several flowers done as well. I love handwork, so it is perfect for me to do while the baby is nursing, while traveling, and while I am waiting at my older kids activities.

I am not really following a pattern. I am mostly using my scraps up, plus I put out a call on facebook to my friends, looking for their scraps. Recently we went to visit my family out of state and my Grandma gave me full access to her fabric stash! I am thinking I want to be at about 3,000 hexagons to make a good size snuggle quilt (I am doing 1" hexagons). I know that "Snuggle" is not a size, but in our house, all quilts are for snuggling, and when you are a family of 6, you need ample blanket to go around. :)

My older girls like to play with the hexagons like they are puzzles or create flowers for me to sew together. One day, when this quilt is done, there will be a lot of memories tied into it.

My girls, Ella and Thea playing with the hexagons

Ana, 3 months old, and 3 months of hexagons (881)

Playing around with arrangement. I am pretty sure I am going to stick to a rainbow wash like this. It just makes me happy, and that is what counts, right?

Thanks again!

Contributors

Our group keeps growing! On the sidebar, I've put blogs (or no blogs) for people I could figure out. If you have a blog or a profile and your name isn't there, please let me know. I've actually pieced a few small flowers on my 3/4" hexagon UFO, but no pictures yet. Soon! I have two more redwork ones finished and am designing Monday's pattern today.

Wonderful Heart Hexagon Tutorial

I'd love to show you a picture, but it isn't mine to show, so head over to The Tilted Quilt and scroll down to her second picture of the hexagon heart. There you'll find the tutorial for how to make your own! To see a quilt of them in the making, check out Freshly Pieced and scroll down just a little bit. Two wonderful inspirations for those who love hexagons!

Hexagon quilt

Hi, I am Věra, 41 and I am from the Czech Republic. English isn´t my mother´s tongue but I´ll try my best. I love patchwork and  EPP and today I want to show you my last finished hexagon quilt. It´s a kind of scrap quilt and I had no pattern for it. The flower fabrics was my daughter´s dress. I started from the center and used home-made plastic templates about 2 inch size.

It´s all hand pieced and hand quilted. Originally it should be the round table - topper, but finally I decided to make haxagon shape and not to use the binding - there´s an extra back row. This quilt didn´t meet my sewing machine, I swear. It tooks me about six months, but I´m proud of it.
I hope you like it and may be it´s a little inspiraton.

Block 3, 4 and 5

Here are my last blocks in Red Hexagon Embroidery Sew Along. I try to do the stitcheries as simple as possible, because I'm a newbie when comes to embroidery. You can read more about my blocks and see the details here.

NEWBIE ;>)

Hello, dear hexies friends ! My name is Nadine, I'm 61, married, mother of 4 and grandmother of 2 and we're livng part time in Belgium and Spain, since our retirement last year.

I'm quilting for more than 18 years, and I'm a handpiecer/handquilter, no matter how long it takes (and, boy, it sometimes takes loooong!) My favourite quilts are the scrappy ones, with a vintage look. Of course I love EPP (aaah, those hexies!), so easily portable and with such accurate results!

As many quilter friends, I have to confess that I'm (very) easily distracted with new projects/patterns... which leads to a growing pile of UFO's! But, after all, who cares - as long as we're having fun?

Some weeks ago, however, I decided to sort out those UFO's, and I found a lovely box filled with 3/4" hexie flowers that really, really deserved coming back on my working table... When I saw this blog, while browsing through the Web, I thought it would be a good idea being part of such a cheerful, inspirational team, and so here I am now, with those hexie flowers, that I'm planning to piece without any "path" between them, in order to get that "mosaic" effect that I love so much.

Enjoy your sewing, dear friends !  Until next time ;>)

NADINE ("Friendship Threads" blog)

So Many Cute Hexagon Projects!

Are you following the great resurgence in hexagon popularity? It's amazing what people are doing with them! Here are some sites I found today, just wandering around:

Log Cabin Hexagon Tutorial I love the fabrics she used. There are two parts to this, and part two is found here.

See a different view of a similar idea here

a cute pillow pincushion with a hexagon flower

Photograph of a top in the Nebraska State Historical Society.

A machine done tutorial on hexagon coasters. I liked seeing how she put this hexagon together.

Like Modern? Try this combination of hand and machine techniques to make a Modern Hexagon Quilt.

I'm sure you have a lot of favorite links. Some of the best ideas are right here on this blog! Feel free to share links only (not pictures, as those belong to the blog owner) here. Most of the posts here are about our own work, but occasionally, it's okay to share links only to hexagons which have inspired you. Please don't share any links not hexagon related, however.

RHE SAL: 6th block

This was week twelve, so here's a pic of the sixth original design to be posted! I really loved doing this one. I'm trying to alternate some garden creature with some kind of plant, not necessarily edible plants, but this block combines both!

Here's the photograph.

You can see all six together and find the links to the pattern on my blog: cq4fun.

RHE: 5th block

Yes, it's week ten, so time for the 5th original design to be posted! This one is simple, but I have to say that no two leaves of mine are the same. Though I traced nicely on the fabric, each one went its own way!

Here's the photograph first.

You can see all five together and find the links to the pattern on my blog: cq4fun.

Hexagon Preparation

Margaret asked a good question in the comments on the 1/4" hexes, posted by Tubakk. Her question was whether we cut out as we go or have hundreds ready to go. I have to say I've gone both ways, though not hundreds - I'm not that patient! Most commonly, I cut out as I go, or maybe cut all the pieces for one flower.

I've added a poll at the top of the sidebar so members and visitors can vote to let us know how people typically prepare to do their hexagon quilts. Thanks for participating and helping us find common ground!

I loved this example I found. Click on the photo to find her many interesting hexagon projects.

1/4" hexagons

Today I'll show you the tiniest hexagons I work on. This is really a long term project, and I wonder how long I'm going to sew these small ones. But it is fun, so I'll keep on sewing for another year, I think.

These flowers are here placed on a 2" hexagon, and you understand that they are really small. I have to join at least two of these flowers to my work every month. I make a cross in my calendar, that way I keep up my motivation for it.

 





















It isn't going fast, but still it's groing every month.

There are thousands of hexies already. You may count them if you like.

This is the back side, almost as beautiful as the front. Needn't use much batting here.

Can I inspire anyone to start these small hexagons?

Block 3 for RHE SAL posted

My third block designs for the Redwork Hexagon Embroidery Stitch Along can be seen here. There are links to download the pattern as either .jpg or .pdf.

Update on RHE, and Congratulations

First two blocks of my design from Redwork Hexagon Embroidery SAL. Congratulations to tubakk for winning a $20 gift certificate on Sew Bitter Sweet Designs!

Interesting hexagon design

Friendship Baskets Kit on Connecting Threads. If the baskets were as fast as the hexagons, I could totally see making this!

First Redwork Hexagon Embroidery Flower

The .pdf for the snail is downloadable from a link on my regular blog post

You can see Jill's patriotic one on her blog.

HeLP for Hexie-aholics

HeLP for Hexie-aholics just went live over on my personal blog!!

Sadly, I' still working on the same project but I hope you'll stop by our linky party and share your project!

Geta's Quilting Studio: About Friendship

Geta's Quilting Studio: About Friendship: I have just a few quilting friends here in Romania but they are good friends. I met them years ago and since then we share the passion for quilting, READ GETA'S STORY AND SHE POSTED A DETAIL REPORT, ITS BEYOND AMAZING..

Little Waves of Hexagons!

I kept thinking I wanted long waves of hexagons instead of the traditional flowers. Did I mention how big 2" hexagons are? I was sort of stranded for an idea of how to use the embroidery AND get the long rows instead of flowers. That would be a lot of white, and I didn't want to embroider every one of them, so ... in the evolving pattern, I have flowers in the center, maybe, with borders that are long rows - and I embroider a vine across the row! I'll try to draw something up in the next few days to give a visual, but I like where my head is going with these!

Royal Society Vintage Tiny Transfers

There's a suggestion for the first embroidery bit for flower number one here on cq4fun.

We have a couple of new members. I hope they'll introduce themselves with a picture of an ongoing Hexagon project or a plan for this SAL! Welcome to the blog!

First SAL Hexagons

Not stitched around the stitchery yet, but there is a stitchery finished! You'll see that on Monday, April 15. But here are the basted first bunch. I totally miscalculated! I thought a 2" hexagon could be cut from a 3.5 inch square. Boy was I wrong! It's a tight squeeze even on a 4.5 inch square! Very comfortable to trim it from a 5" square.

Redwork Hexagon SAL

A Stitch Along you might be interested in doing. That's a link to my blog where I put up the proposed Embroidery/Redwork/Hexagon project. I'm really looking forward to it. I think it will be so much fun to combine 3 things I love!

Some Great Hexagon Projects

Leanne's blog shows her embroidery combined with hexagons. Designs by Fee has a wonderful Block of the month that I keep thinking about trying. I love what he does with embroidery and hexagons, too. This month's Quiltmaker may make you HAVE to buy it! For a sneak peak at the hexagons there, check out Hexagon Round Up and be sure to click on the pinterest page. I'm not a big fan of pinterest, but I did find a couple of hexagon ideas there that I liked, like this one, shown on Craftsy.

You can also download a hexagon design sheet to print and color with different ideas, maybe keep them in a notebook.

Hexagons to triangles quilt

I finished this quilt a couple of years ago. It's made of black hexagons surrounded by mixed coloured half hexagons. I puzzeled the half hexagons so that it seemed like triangles in between the black hexies.

You have to study it closely to understand how I did it. The hexagons are about 1 1/2". All the hexies are hand sewn, and hand quilted. Take a closer look at the quilting in the next picture.

Hope this can inspire you to use all your small scraps, and make a real beauty out of them.

Pieced Hexies

I have been playing with Pieced Hexies lately...

Both in preparing for a demo at our monthly Hexie Night at my LQS:

Made with yummy Cherrywood Fabrics!

But also because I signed up for Mickey's Craftsy class that also had 2 more hexie designs :)

This is an 18" block which will be made in to a cat mat. I still need to decide what hexie-something-or-other to add to the corners to liven it up a little more.

The red fabric has hexies on it!

 Yesterday was my HeLP for Hexie-aholics linky party on my blog...I hope you'll stop by for a look see!

Half hexagon project

This is my ongoing project with blue, green and black scraps. I've done some blocks the last week, and like to show you all.

Here is how I do it. First I cut paper templates. Then I cut the fabrics about 1/4" outside the edges of the paper. I sew the fabric around the paper, but do not sew through. That way I can use the paper again and again, as long as the shape is good. The edges of the hexagon templates are 1".

At last I make a block out of four half hexagons, as you can see in the last picture, and join the block to the quilt as I like the colours to be. Gives me a sort of a chevron pattern, and I've never seen anybody else doing it this way. Have you?

I've thought about making the colours the opposite way, the blue and green in the middle. Think that would have given me a butterfly row instead of a black zigzag. I have to try that next time.

Hexie Puzzle update

I thought I would share an updated picture of my Hexie Puzzle quilt. I am in the process of trying to get it to be symetrical so I can then decide what the final project will become.

And, if you just want a quickie project...try this as a mugrug. I'm sorry the model is blocking part of the photo...

Wedding rings

This is a small wall hanging I made from scraps, 12"x12".  I used 1" squares. I've also used triangles and hexagons in this quilt. After finishing it, I appliqued it onto a background. Then I handquilted it, as you can see around every ring. Outside the rings I quilted some stars.

Here's a close-up for the quilting.

I love to use all my tiny scraps this way.

Food for thought.

Progress update of my hexagon quilt. Just sharing a few photos.

It's my labour of love.

Hexagon wallhanging

This was the first really big quilt I made of hexagons. It took me nearly four years to finish it. The hexies are 1 1/4" at the ends. I cut all the papers myself, and didn't know about any precuts or standard sizes. The whole thing is handsewn and handquilted, of course.

Here you can see a close-up of the hexies. A bit difficult to see the quilting, but I quilted inside every hexagon. I made the pattern for this, and I like the way it came out. It is now my pride hanging in my hall.

I had to sew some bread basket clothes to find out what to do with the ends when I had quilted it all.