Blog / hexagons

English paper piecing has become my go-to project when I'm traveling, so after finishing my star blossoms quilt, I immediately switched over to a hexagon project I started ages ago, but had never finished. During plane rides this past fall to Salt Lake City for Sewing Summit and Houston for Quilt Market, I stitched away.


The main fabrics I used were hand-printed scraps by Sara Lee Parker, which I bought from her table at Crafty Bastards a few years ago. I paired her prints with an olive linen from my stash. I took an improv approach to the layout of the hexagons---I pulled basted hexagons from a pouch without looking, and stitched together whatever I pulled.

Once I'd stitched together all of the pieces I had, I decided to machine appliqué the entire shape to a rectangular scrap of muslin. I did echo quilting around the edges and then framed it all with a black binding.


I love how this piece turned out---and loved working with Sara's fabrics---and can't wait to hang it on my studio wall.

When my husband and I went to London last year, I brought along an English paper-piecing project to work on during the plane ride and down time in the city (you can see the start of it here).


In the months that followed, I continued to work on it, and this past fall, I finally finished it.


I used Rachel's Star Blossoms tutorialas my starting point, and decided to make each star monochromatic,...