Hexagons: Not Your Grandma's Garden

I would to welcome everyone visiting from Splish Splash Stash's In Hand EPP Link Party (and everyone else who may be reading this). Because I haven't posted anything for the party before I am going to do a complete summary of my English Paper Piecing project.

Once upon a time I was sewing away on my Grandma's 57 year old Elna. It was a fantastic machine until I broke a gear under the bobbin. I was lost. No sewing to be had. I searched the internet for ideas and found some English Paper Piecing tutorials (can't remember where). I figured it was worth a shot...

I started with a jelly roll of batiks, and found some easy to print/cut out papers from Texas Freckles. 1 inch hexagons started to be formed very very slowing from 2.5 inch squares cut from the jelly roll. Some days only 3 or 4 would get basted. Let's just say between February and June I managed to basted roughly 300 hexies in assorted colors from the jelly roll. 

Then in june I started making flowers. Also a slow process to start with. I have sped up alot since the first couple. So here is the recap in photos (way more fun than reading what I might have to say)

52 flowers complete and on the design wall ~ August

Once I had all the flowers done it was time for decisions. Would I applique the flowers onto a background or keep going doing EPP. I have a bit of a 'Go Big or Go Home' attitude so basting ~1500 white-on-white hexies seemed like a good idea. I basted and basted and basted. Then I went away for a weekend and had no papers cut and ready to go, so I decided it was time to start stitching some together. I made strips of 10, then joined them into rows. When I got back I was having so much fun that I kept going and put the first 3 rows together. Inserting the first flower along the way.

End of September

Then it was time to fix what I had thought was a problem with the design on wall for 2 months. When I pictured the layout, I pictured the flowers falling towards the lower left corner, and with the original layout they would have been falling to the lower right. (Silly right, but I had to fix it, it was driving me crazy). 

Since I was happy with the layout on the design wall, I thought I should probably finish basting the white hexies. I am using so many different white prints that I didn't think it would be wise to get too eager sewing them together before I had enough and risk having a whole section with the same 2 or 3 prints when I reach the end of the supply. 

So this is where I am at now. 2 trays of white on white hexies basted for a total of 1034. Add in the 364 colored ones, brings it is nice big total of 1398. I think I need 1850 plus some ~100 half hexies.  All of the these numbers seem totally attainable, and not in the far far away future. Thanks for stopping in.

GeoMama