English Paper Piecing, Day Three

Happy Thursday to you! More hexagons and variations made with them.

Today we will focus on strings of hexagons. Yes, we will. Some are wreaths as are shown here with my trusty Little Buddy model.

Little Buddy with strings of hexies

Remember my hexie wreath with the fox in the center from last week?

Foxy Fox from the Fox Wood Collection

I promised a few more detailed shots. This is NOT attached to the green wood grain background fabric yet. I stitched the center of the wreath to the fox fabric and then trimmed away excess.

Back of wreath and fox fabric stitched and trimmed

Then I layered the fox and wreath in the center of my background square (9-1/2"). You can see the folds to help me align. Now I stitched around the outside of the wreath. I used a short zigzag machine stitch and monofilament thread in the top and cream in the bobbin.

Stitching the outside of the wreath to the background fabric

Now I trim away the excess background fabric from beneath the wreath.

Final trim.

And finished from the front. These are 3/4" hexagons, fourteen of them.

Fox Wood and His Wreath

This is the ring of twelve 3/4" hexies that my Little Buddy is wearing at the top of this page. And what she's wearing as she stitches another set of 3/4" hexagons.

Sittin' and Stitchin' underneath a bouquet of my peonies

It's hard to capture anything really in the center of this. I think it will just be her necklace for the time being.

Twelve 3/4" hexagons in a ring

Now for some larger hexagons. These are from the Bella Collection (2013) by Lotta Jansdotter for Windham Fabrics.

A few dozen 2" hexagons

String them together:

String of 2" hexagons

Leave the papers in and make several rows.

String of 7 hexagons

And we have The Zig and Zag of Hexies! This was a Cut Loose Press pattern (which features Creative Grids rulers), but all you need for this are my instructions and a stack of 2" hexagons.

The Zig and Zag of Hexies

Here's another one I started in 2014. It will be a much larger quilt center.

The Zig and Zag of Hexies #2

I made a smaller version using a charm pack and 2" hexagons.

Charm pack of Briar Rose (by Windham Fabrics) and 2" hexagon papers

And the simple runner:

Smaller version of The Zig and Zag of Hexies

That's probably enough for today! Tomorrow I hope to share some tips for fussy cutting motifs (to center them within a shape) and maybe another shape or two. Until then, STITCH ON!