Fun with Hexies!

Way back in March, I was very excited about going to Bloomington, IN to take a class with Mickey Depre called "Hello Hexies! - Mug Rug".  Unfortunately, two days before the class, my hubby fell getting off his motorcycle and fractured his femur.  He spent 2 1/2 weeks in the hospital, and I spent a lot of time sitting by his bedside.  So I thought, I should probably just teach myself to English Paper Piece.  I mean, I retaught myself how to knit continental style after learning English style when I was 10.  Problem was, I heard that it was kind of addicting!

Yeah, they are kinda addicting.  I started out just making enough to make some mug rugs.  But then, I really wanted to keep making them.  So I fired up my trust EQ7 and designed this little wall hanging.  I churned out blue hexies, and thought how cute some bees would look, so I pieced some black and yellow and to make a pieced hexie!

My original thought was to do some hand stitching ala Laura Wasilowski, but I changed direction when I saw how well my Bernina 550 did a double blanket stitch with King Tut thread.  And I was inspired to free motion quilt the petals in the hexie petals, and pebble the flower centers!

And I am pretty proud of the back, also!  I usually would match my bobbin thread to my backing fabric, but I was afraid of having black thread pop up in the blue sky, so I threw caution to the wind and went for white!

Mickey has written a book "Pieced Hexies - A New Tradtion in English Paper Piecing" which will be available in September.  Pieced Hexies has its own Facebook page; if this has interested you, stop by and like it, and browse at all the fun things you can do with hexagons!