Summer before last and one of the few yard sales we went to I scored a great deal I forgot to share.
These hexies brought back memories of my Grandmother's "Grandmother's Flower Garden" quilts.
As you can see these directions have reference to the 1987 "Quilts and Crafts" so this bag of fabrics had to be from around that time. Although rotary cutters had come on the market, many of us still used cardboard templates.
I found this bag with some cut pieces and some squares waiting to be cut.
The bag also included a cardboard template you see above.
As you can see, this was a fantastic deal.
I bought the bag because of the deal on the fabric.
I have not been interested in hand stitching hexies, because I thought that to be
a long, difficult and tedious process.
I had been given little paper piecing kits from a quilt guild at the state fair 2 years in a row.
People claimed it to be habit forming?
We made quilt templates out of any stiff but not too heavy to cut cardboard.
Only 3 pieces out of the entire bag had been sewn together and they were done by hand.
I found it interesting how they stored them by folding the middle piece so they could be stacked.
Check out the tiny stitches. That's what I always observe when looking at these vintage pieces.
People strived to make tiny and consistent length stitches both in piecing and quilting.
So a couple of weeks ago, while cleaning up my sewing room,
I came across this bag of hexies.
I apprehensively looked at this bag again.
When I first bought them I thought some day I might machine stitch them,
but that's not easy either.
Then I started watching English Paper Piecing on You Tube.
I don't like messing with glue or starch.
Then videos about just regular hand piecing of hexies came up.
For some reason that interested me.
So a couple of weeks ago, while watching TV, I tried it.
Yep, it's habit forming.
While it took me an hour to make each of these, it's still a progressive process.
Since I was VERY pleased they didn't come out wonky,
Oddly a few years back,
I found this great deal.
Again, I thought they might come in handy if I machine stitched hexies.
I had no interest in hand stitching them.
This is how we build our stash.
If its a great deal you buy it, just in case you might need it.
Well, now I need it.
I'm using the 3½ inch template to cut out more like the hexies in the bag.
I had also a couple of years ago,
accidently bought a fine tip heat sensitive Frixon pen that hadn't been too useful
until I started using it with this template.
It can mark the holes!
So for the next couple of months,
while warming up in the south,
I hope to hand stitch more of these,
while they continue to bring back memories of my
Grandmothers, Aunts and neighbors that always made the hardest quilt patterns
two of which I believe to be the Grandmother's Flower Garden and Double Wedding Ring.
by hand.
