Happily addicted to hexagons

Since I first started English Paper Piecing (or EPP as the cool kids refer to it) 7 years ago, it would appear that I have become addicted, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it's portable.

Secondly, it's highly accurate.

And thirdly, it's just SO DAMN RELAXING. This was me, Friday night in front of the football after a horribly stressful week. Shoulders were down, breathing was slowed, and I was in my own bliss, snipping basting threads.



Since Rita from Red Pepper Quilts did a swap of a small unfinished hexagon quilt and blocks for some Wollmeise a couple of months ago, I've been working intermittently on it, adding some of my own fabrics to make it more my own quilt. Rita has such an amazing colour sense though, that it's hard to find the perfect complementary fabrics to go with this quilt.

Rita had also sent me some extra of the green background fabric because I decided early on I wanted to make this bigger than a baby quilt. Although even now I know I'm going to have to get some more of that lovely background green as I want this quilt to be so much bigger.



Cutting out the fabric hexagons is very satisfying, although I have to admit that my rotating cutting board and the perspex hexagon makes it so much easier and faster. However I cut out each piece of my Twisted Hexagons quilt by using pencil, a template and a pair of scissors and it didn't hurt one bit. It might have taken me an extra two years, but I'm mostly about the enjoyment of the process.



While Rita thread basted her hexagons, I've been glue basting mine. I'm still torn on glue basting. While it's very fast to do and means less holes in your fingers from pushing a needle through paper and fabric, it doesn't last long along the edges of your quilt. I have doubts about how long the glue would last on paper pieces and fabric that you left sitting around for, say, a year, but I suppose time really will tell. In the meantime I'll keep on with the glue.



This is the quilt as of this morning. My mister saw it as I was pressing it, and commented that it was such an insanely happy quilt, and I was obviously happy making it. So the name "Happy Hexagons" has stuck. This here - this is the Happy Hexagons quilt that Rita and I made.

I'm about to explore new areas of my addiction. Katy Jones from I'm a Ginger Monkey and Fat Quarterly is running a hexalong using the quilt pattern she designed called "Hexy MF" (Fat Quarterly are now after a more polite name for the quilt, but it will always be Hexy MF to me, and as we all know how I'm not that polite). Have you seen the Hexy MF before?


(from Imagingermonkey)


Spectacular.


I'm teaching Brown Owls how to EPP next weekend and I'm hoping to get some of them on board this hexalong as well. It's not going to be a quick project! But it's going to be a lot of fun. I've already bought my 1.5 inch papers and I'm ready to go. How about you?