72 Shades of Red

I had been wanting to try some English paper piecing - I thought it would be nice to have a hand sewing project. I helped my mother and sister make a grandmother's flower garden quilt many years ago.

I ordered the GO! Hexagon die. I thought I could use it for cutting out fabric to machine piece, or to cut out paper for hand piecing.

The same day the die arrived, I received this English Paper Piecing kit from Sew What, a new local business (I had answered a survey and this was my free gift - thank-you so much Heather and Preston! And good luck with your business).

So I tried both the card stock hexagons and small paper hexagons (1" sides) that I cut with the GO! to make the hexagons.

I decided to just make a small mug rug to see how it works. I thought I would cut out one hexagon from all the red fabrics I have - I was surprised that I had 72! Some of them were just little scraps. The mug rug ended up being 14.5" x 25".

I used a small zig-zag stitch and 100 weight fine thread to appliqué the pieced hexagons to a larger piece of fabric. I used two layers of cotton batting (because I didn't have the heat resistant, foil batting). I added the binding before quilting the feather border, so that the quilting would be even on the edge. I don't cut the extra batting and backing off before I bind a quilt, so I still have some place to hold when I am quilting.

I quilted a small meander over the hexagons, and "bump-bump" feathers in the border. The quilting is with the same 100 weight thread, and a #80 Titanium needle.

It came out to a nice size for my coffee table trunk.

It was lovely to hand sew the hexagons and I see more hexagons in my future.

Recently I was contacted by Jessi (Joy Unspeakable) because she was making my clothes pin bag pattern, and had some question. Well, she finished the bag, all stitched by hand, and did such a lovely job - she shows it here. Be sure to check out her blog - she lives in Kenya as a missionary, and has a very interesting life.

Ruth (Country Log Cabin) also sent me some pictures of her Thread Head Quilt Along quilt, her 50th Anniversary quilt shown here. She did a great job too!

It is so nice for me to see the projects that people have made with my patterns. Thanks!!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!