english paper piecing vs ordinary hand piecing

Hanne, I will say again-- Inklingo. Wonderful program. The first disk has hexes, half hexes and more. Lots of shapes. You print onto your fabric with your ink jet printer, both cutting lines and stitching lines. (Iron washed fabric onto freezer paper to put through the printer.) Go to Linda Franz's website,

,and there is a video about Inklingo.

I love the program. easy, fast and so convenient. No hand marking of seam lines, and so on.

Not associated, but a very happy, satisfied customer.

Pati, > I am looking for advice/opinions on whether/when it is necessary to use

take this knowing i'm only half coherent at this point in the day... i've EPP the units of a bird together, then interfaced it to applique down. ya can EPP 'bout anything that takes your fancy. half hex's can be cut from strips making that part easy, just gotta have the right angle, dont ask me what that is, too much for my brain now to work out, has to be easy enough tho and i'm sure if you cant, some one else here can tell ya. that'd work with paper cutting too, strips, mark, cut, EPP, join, voila. you quilt, therefore you can do anything. just go for it. jeanne

Howdy!

Here's Butterfly's quilt, full of hexagons.

When I received the top it was partially completed, rather irregular in shape; she included a baggie of hexagons to continue w/ the piecing. I made a template from one of those hexagons and cut out a few hundred more (reproduction fabrics are great!) Pieced them together (watch the seam allowance carefully) by my regular hand-piecing process, no English paper piecing necessary. Because I said so. I think it turned out pretty well; so does Mz. B.

Bias edges? Yeah, there were some. But they're very small and they piece just like any other cut fabric. ;-)

Do a trial piece; see if you like it.

Good luck!

R/Sandy -- btw, I made enough hexagons to go around the edge twice & then trimmed them for a straight edge

Half-hexagons don't require any Y-seams. You can seam the non-parallel sides into long strips and then sew the strips together. That is how Sara Nephew's "Bubbles" quilt is assembled:

Julia > I am looking for advice/opinions on whether/when it is necessary to use

I'm so glad you showed us that, Julia. I have been thinking of half-hexagons - halved the other way. Eek! . In message , Julia in MN writes

Wonderful! Busy but Wonderful.

Susan

Ah, but mine are turned different ways, as in this picture:

In any case, I made a test with both, and I decided for the English paper piecing as the method requiring less brainpower while sewing at camp with distractions all around :-)

Thanks everyone!

Hanne in London

Julia > Half-hexagons don't require any Y-seams. You can seam the non-parallel

There's a pattern for this in Lynne Edwards' New Sampler Quilt Book using Eng. Paper Piecing. Its called Inner City. It went together like a dream but did need a bit of concentration so that the correct colours got joined! Sometimes I forgot to concentrate.

You may find the book in the Library, there is also one called The Sampler Quilt Book, but this is in her second book. (Personally I think its confusing calling the 2nd book the New Sampler Quilt Book). She also uses the quilt as you go technique I was taught. Her books have really clear diagrams with lots of photos of the finished blocks and the quilts her students made using the patterns. You can actually see how they quilted the blocks too.

I'm a big fan but NAYY.

Sally,

For the patches which I have already basted (a range across the different fabrics), I laid them out making sure I got the contrasts right and them stacked them carefully in their little groups of 6 half-hexes. Hopefully that will help :-)

The book sounds great, particularly the point about seeing how it is quilted, as this is something which has me puzzled right now. I plan to make a wall hanging, with the border being black and the half-hex top being irregular with the black filling in. I'm thinking of quilting part way into the black border using hex/half-hex motifs.

Thanks! Hanne

Its just one block (the quilt being a sampler one) and has 14 complere Ys in it. It looks as though it is quilted in the ditch round the outside and then all in the ditch for the main design. Unfortunately the photo has a green on white fabric and its a bit difficult to see white ITD stitching. Her background doesn't appear to be quilted at all, but your idea sounds good.

There's a picture of mine in my Quilting Album - the first picture. I did it for my Sampler Quilt using scraps. I think I would have arranged the colours a bit better now, or not used scraps, but it was the first proper quilt I made and I had to do it by the next class! The photo is a bit crumpled which doesn't help either.

This year I really must finish the last bits of this quilt!! Its been sitting in a bag for too long. I think I just had overkill on it.

Sally,

I tagged the book onto an outstanding order at amazon :-)

I'm not using scraps, and I'm using quite bold colours, which I think makes it a little easier to get the high contrast needed. But yours looks good too. I think for designs which require careful placement, it can be harder using scraps.

Hanne in London

We learn by our mistakes! I was only a beginner then!