April's Craftsy BOM - Hexi Love and Redwork Christmas Tree

 Hexie Love

Craftsy's April Block of the Month was all about making Hexies using the English Paper Piecing technique. I have been wanting to try making them. Surfing quilting blogs and seeing many quilters making quilts and projects using this old, tried and true block pattern has certainly tantalized the desire to make something with them. It took this April's block of the month to motivate and inspire me to do so. Thank you Amy Gibson for choosing this block pattern. This is actually not a pattern that Craftsy promoted for the second block. It was a sun with rays. My color and fabric choices definitely didn't lend to making a sunshine with rays so I made a common flower using a 1-1/4 inch hexagon shaped template. Every flower needs a stem and leaves so I designed the stem and leaves by laying a layer of Golden Thread Paper (transparent paper that can be used for multiple purposes) and drawing them on to the paper. Once drawn I cut them out and pasted the pieces to freezer paper on the non-shiny side, ironed the freezer paper to the fabric and cut 1/4" seam around each piece.

I'm quite pleased with the results.

The smaller picture was taken outside where natural light enhances the picture.

The first block demonstrated was with a double strip of hexies sewn together using 13 different fabrics. It's so cute!

I also finished block #6 out of 12 for my redwork Winter Twitterings quilt. Well I thought it was finished until I noticed I missed a snowflake. Since it is starched, pressed and a picture has been taken I am going to call it finished!