Piecing Time

I just signed up for Rossie’s Process Pledge.  I will start with the project I’m currently working on: the Squid quilt.  It’s piecing time! After I got all my little 3/4″ hexies made, I laid them all out on a big table according to my pattern, without caring how the blues looked.  Here is how it looked:

Then I spent almost 4 days re-arranging over and over again until I was happy with the blending of the blue hexies.  It turned out to be a bit tougher and take more time, but now I love it:

Last week I started the big process of piecing the hexagons together.  This is one of the first hand-stitched projects I’ve done, so I tried a few different ways. Here is a tutorial on how I ended up stitching them together:

EPP Hexie Stitching Tutorial – Piecing Time!

EPP Hexie Stitching Tutorial
1. Run needle under back of hexie and through the corner, so the knot is under the fabric and not showing:

2. With WRONG sides together I start my stitch:

3. I use a ladder type stitch and go all the way across to the other side:

4. Because I feel the need for stability, I flip it around and go back across one more time:

5. Ten I run the stitch to the center of the hexies and pull my needle through to the back:

6. From there I tie off the thread in a stable knot on the backside:

7. Voila… the front tends to have no showing thread:

At this stage, I’m starting to consider the edging of this quilt.  I’m thinking a solid color fabric maybe… or I have some nice blueish silk with green strands running through it that could look nice with this, but I don’t know about mixing silk and cotton in the same quilt.  I’m also trying to decide if the edging fabric should be made into more hexies and added to what I have so far, then when I sew the straight edges, the hexagon shapes will be visible.  So much to consider… luckily I have plenty of time while I piece these together!