Sexy Hexy

I'm a night early with my quilt block but I'm excited to share... Let's get the geek confession out of the way, though. The whole time I was making the flower for this block I kept thinking of the words sexy hexy. Which would then morph into "Where's sexy Rexy?" in Eddie's voice from Empire Records. Have you ever seen that flick, circa 1995? I was obsessed with that movie then, and I'm still in love with it. Still. Like even today after two evenings of "where's sexy Rexy?" running through my head I want to reallllly watch it.

So I guess it won't surprise you, then, to learn that I had to make hexagons this week. I have admired them from afar for some time, but never made any. I don't care for hand-sewing so I was content to let them be. I kept thinking there had to be a way to make them by machine, but after last week's inset seams I was fine with making them by hand (which is what we had to do, anyway). I was so heart skippingly happy with my little flower I wanted to just keep adding to it. But I restrained myself.

I honestly sat at my kitchen table grinning while I was stitching this together. We used English paper piecing, where you cut your fabric larger than the template and fold it under, basting it in place. When your pieces are stitched you pull out the paper. I thought this would be entirely too difficult so I never tried that either, but it was so easy and so fun.

My hand-stitching was pretty dang tight, so I'll have to loosen up next time. I only developed a low level of angst after I zigged these down to the backing fabric. My stitching is terrible (I hardly ever use the zig-zag setting so I'm not at all proficient with it) and the cherry fabric puckered a bit. That fabric is a bit thinner than the others and I'm thinking that's where the issue lies with that.

The next time I would not use a zig stitch. I'd probably pop on the even-feed foot and straight-stitch. Other than that I have not one shred of angst about this block. I get why people love making hexies. I can see me stitching up eleventy million of these with no real purpose in mind, they're THAT fun. But I'm trying not to do those pointless sorts of things anymore, so I'll have to see what I can whip up with a few.

I knew I was smitten when we were doing the relaxation phase in yoga the other night and I couldn't wait to get home to hand sew. Even with the template cutting and basting and all that jazz, this block can be done in an evening (it took me two as I had some other stuff I was doing), and at a relaxed pace at that.

If you've been wanting to try this I heartily think you should. The tutorial I used in the sew along was great, and the tut over at KandiPandi's is really nice too. What a great portable project, too. Must go dig through some scraps.....

Bye for now!