English Paper Piecing...Cutting Paper and Fabric

Hi everyone! I'm back from yesterday's English Paper Piecing post about how to sew the hexagons together. You can click HERE if you missed the post. I had lots of questions and emails about how to cut the paper and the fabric, so here is another post I put together today. I hope this helps!!!

As with any project, there are many ways of doing something. The ideas I'm posting here are just a few of the different methods I've used over the years for cutting the freezer paper and the fabric. Technology has made things a little easier with hand held paper punches and electric die cutters, but I'll also show you a simple way to cut the hexies with a cardboard template.

Cutting the Paper Hexagons...

Types of paper

• freezer paper (my favorite)
• card stock
• recycled envelopes
• and those annoying magazine inserts finally have a purpose

Types of cutters

• accuquilt die cutter
• Fiskars hand held paper punches (found in the scrapbooking section of any craft store or online)
• store bought plastic template for rotary cutter
• print template from free online source and make one from cardboard to plastic template

Here are the types that I have used.

Come inside for lots of pictures and steps for each method.

New Accuquilt Go Dies…Hexagon English Paper Piecing Tutorial

Hi everyone! Over 4 years ago, I received an Accuquilt Go Fabric Cutter and die sets from the wonderful people at the Accuquilt Company to try and see how I liked it. Well, I just didn't like it…I LOVED it and still do. It's fast, accurate and so easy to use. It is a permanent fixture in my sewing room and I have bought several new dies for it my self over the years.

If you are not familiar with the Accuquilt Go! Fabric Cutting system, it is a portable unit with rollers and manual handle. The dies are shapes set in foam with the blades or cutters hidden in the foam. You place the fabric on top of the die, cover with a cutting mat and send it throughout the rollers. In a matter of seconds, your fabric shapes, strips or patterns are cut for you. Fast and easy.

Well, a few months ago Ellen, from Accuquilt, contacted me again to try their new set of dies. They are amazing...so many new shapes and sets that every quilter will love. They are familiar, traditional shapes and patterns that would normally take so much time to cut, even with a rotary cutter. At the time I received all the dies, my schedule was crazy and then the holidays came in full force, so I haven't had the time until now to play with them. I'd love to share them with you today!

Here are all fabulous new dies…

• Half Hexagon- 4 1/2 inch sides
• English Paper Piecing- 1 inch finished sides
• Bowties- 4 inches finished
• English Paper Piecing- 1/2 inch finished sides
• Clamshell- 8 inches finished
• Snowball- 6 inches finished
• Clamshell- 4 inches finished
• Hexagon- 4 1/2 inch sides
• Equilateral Triangle- 4 1/2 inch sides
• Hunter Star- 6 inches finished
• Wedge- 9 inches finished

The half hexagon, hexagon and the equilateral triangle all have 4 1/2 inch on the sides, so they will all coordinated and go together to form more patterns and quilt designs!

Come on in to see all the dies and today's tutorial for the English Paper Piecing...

I'm Having A Sew Sew Saturday...Join Me Again?

Last Saturday was my first "Sew Sew Saturday"...not a so so Saturday, but a Sew Sew!! I made an appointment with myself to get some something done and I did it.

For me, Saturday seems to work the best. During the week, work gets in the way and night time I usually  do my projects for my blog post, not to mention computer time for Pinterest and catching up on emails. This is why I love my new "Sew Sew Saturdays"

Today we are leaving bright and early for a road trip to see my nephew play soccer. However, I am still sewing something. I promised myself I would try to stick with this.

Here's what I dragged out of hiding...my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. I will do my hand sewing in the car. Need to take my Bonine though (motion sickness pill). That stuff works great for me. I can sew AND read in the car when I take that.

I am hanging my head in shame on this one...I started this 10 years ago.

My saving grace on this project is that I told my husband I would make him this quilt for our 50th wedding anniversary! Lol.

• we'll be married 25 years this summer...so still no pressure
• I also never told him what size the quilt will be...lap quilt, table runner, bath mat, place mat!!!

Join me today for another "Sew Sew Saturday" and get out an unfinished project or start a new one, but just START SEWING!!!

Happy Stitching,
~Karen~

Tool Time Tuesday...Lasting Templates

Happy Tuesday! Today's Tool Time is a recycler too! Whether you are a crafter, quilter or some one who sews (notice I didn't say sewer, because that can go either way if you know what I mean LOL)...we all have paper templates that we use. Most are on flimsy paper that don't last too long. Today I'll show you a quick way to recycle and make your templates last longer. I'll also show you how to make these 2 cuties pictured below from a hexagon flower template. The first is a note card that you can tuck in with a package or gift and the second is a needle case.

It's after the holidays and I know we all have these...gift boxes and more gift boxes!!

Why not use the boxes that might be a little dented or crushed to help make your templates last forever!

I know I use Mod Podge a lot (because I love it), but regular white glue would work too.

Paint the Mod Podge onto the box...

Place your template down on the wet glue...(you may want to make a copy of your original template and keep the original for safe keeping. The glue might rip the template when wet. It hasn't happened to me, but not sure how thin your templates are.)

and then paint another layer of glue (Mod Podge) on top of that.

Here it is almost dry, but I was off to work before a better picture!

So here it is all dry. The Mod Podge acts as a sealer, so it has a nice plasticy coating to keep it clean and the card board makes it so sturdy. If you need it to be even thicker, you could always print your original template onto card stock first and then glue to the box.

Now for the fun part...doing something creative with this template. For crafters, I'm using double sided scrap booking paper. For those of you who have fabric busting out of your shelves...just take 2 of your favorite fabrics and use Heat and Bond to fuse the 2 fabrics, wrong sides together. Follow the directions on your Heat and Bond...Bond, Heat and Bond! (I couldn't resist. I just watch a James Bond marathon yesterday. Sean Connery is my favorite!) This will give you the same look as the double sided paper.

Now just place your super duper sturdy template on your paper or fabric.

Trace...I used a dark pen so you can see it, but a pencil would be less visible if you miss cutting some of it away.

You have to fold along the dotted lines, so pop over to this post I did on using a tracing wheel to help the process.

Crease along all your fold lines.

For the note card, just add your little message.

Start folding one petal over the other and then tuck the final one under the first one you placed down.

All set for your package, gift or just a little love note. If you want to keep the petals sealed and flat you can add a pretty little sticker to the center.

Here's the back side where you can write their name.

Instead of a love note...how about a needle case for your favorite quilter or sewing friend. They'll love it, especially if they are hand sewing a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt.

This Tuesday was the best of a lot of worlds...

• recycling
• saves your templates
• uses paper and/or fabric
• project is quick and easy
• and great gift idea

Have fun with this and Happy Tuesday,
~Karen~

Machine Sewing Hexagons...Half Hexies That Is

In my last post about hexagons, I said I had "H.A."...Hexagon Addiction. Now I have H2O...Hexagon Habit Obsession!!

Here's a picture heavy tutorial on how to machine sew hexagons. This works for any size hexagon. I made a Grandmother's Flower Garden pillow in this tutorial, but you could just plan out your hexagons in any pattern and sew it into a quilt top, just need to trim the sides off.

Cut your desired size hexagons...this is the large hexagon from the accuquilt cutter die. From flat side to flat side it's about 4 1/2" wide. From point to point it's about 5" wide.




Arrange your hexies in the desired pattern. You could do an all over random pattern, a hexie charm quilt or little flowers all over. It's all up to you! This design, unsewn, is about 17" across.

This next step is crucial to the ease of machine sewing the hexies together. It gets rid of those dreaded dog ears and you don't have to guess how to match up the seams.

The first step is to trace your hexagon onto card stock or something sturdy and cut it out. You will only need one.

Now take a quilt ruler and place the edge of the card stock hexie on the 1/4" line.

Draw a pencil line.

Do this all the way around the paper hexagon.

Place your ruler, horizontally from point to point as seen below.

That's the red line below.

Cut the hexagon in half on that red line. You now have 2 templates. You only need one, so you can share the other with a friend!

See that little triangle I'm pointing to in the upper left hand corner of the half hexie?

You need to trim that off.

On both corners. This is the most important part!

The rest of the lines don't mean anything, we just marked them all to get the 1/4" ones we needed.

Now take all your fabric hexagons and rotary cut them in half, like you did for the template...

from point to point.

The half hexagons should look like boats now.

Stack and pin 6-8 half hexies together.

Place your super duper new template on there and...

see that little dog ear? Grrrrr...

snip that devil right off!

You don't know it now, but that little snip just saved you hours of ripping apart seams that didn't match.

Two corners snipped.

and many more to follow.

Now on to the layout and assembly...

Position your half hexagons in the desired pattern, making sure you have each hexagon shape back again.

This picture below shows the first 3 rows sewn together and the rest laid out in the flower shape in a ROW by ROW format. If you hand sew hexies with English paper piecing, you have to get that process out of your head for machine sewing. You will be sewing the half pieces together left to right to make a row, then sewing the rows together.

Each row consists of the boat shaped half hexagons...one long side up and one long side down.

See where I'm pointing to: the one snipped dog ear at the top of the red and white fabric...

and the other on the bottom corner of the blue fabric?

Bring the red and white fabric over to the blue and match those side seams. One snipped dog ear will match the top part of the blue...

and the flat side of the red and white fabric will match the snipped dog ear of the blue. Ok, I know this may sound confusing, but when you actually do it with fabric in hand, you will see immediately how it matches up.

Sew the seam with a 1/4" seam allowance. Sorry I used white thread...what was I thinking. You can click the image to enlarge.

Fold open and now you have perfectly lined up edges.

When sewing the half hexies in a row, you will be alternating how the pieces are placed. One will be up like this...

and the next one will be down like this. Another one of those moments when you will see it when you do it yourself.

Here is a picture of all the rows sewn together.

This is a close-up of the first 3 rows sewn together. This also shows the one up and the one down in the red polka dot row.

When all the half hexies are sewn together, you now have to sew the rows together from the top of the flower to the bottom, matching seams as you go.

This picture is of the first 4 rows sewn together. Make sure you check as you go to make sure you have the right design shaping up.

More rows added.

and now we're all done! You could easily applique this onto something, but remember that all the outside edges still have an unsewn 1/4 seam, so you'll have to turn that seam before you sew.

Here's a close up.

Here's one way to use this flower...a pillow.

Iron all your seams flat first. Then place hexagon flower right sides together on backing fabric.

Pin all the sides.

Sew with 1/4 seam allowance, pivoting with needle down at all the points.

Leave an opening for turning. I just left one edge of a hexagon open and that was too small for stuffing the pillow, so adjust for yourself.

Trim away all backing fabric.

Snip a little in the inseams.

Better results when you turn it right side out.

Turn right side out. See this is where the frustration set in for me with that too small of an opening I made. It was like...well, you fill in the blank. All I can say is that flower was beat up pretty badly!

But she turned out pretty as a picture!

and here's the back of the pillow. You could always make another flower and use that as a back too.

This is that stupid, oops sorry, that small opening I had to stuff through. I know what you are thinking...why didn't she just rip it open more? I hear ya, but I was so near the end and that smaller opening was easier to close. Crazy I know! or is that Lazy I know!

Here it is all stuffed.

and looking all pretty!!

So now that you know how to sew hexagons on the machine, there's no stopping you now. Dig into your stash and start cutting!

Do a google search or an image search of Half Hexagon Quilts and take a look around the web for inspiration.

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend,
~Karen~

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Don't forget, if you haven't enter The Accuquilt Go Cutter Give Away yet...go HERE