Recently someone commented to me that they were surprised by my interest in EPP since I have always been such an enthusiastic machine piecer. I told her EPP is like reading romance novels for me. Two months ago I began to participate in a HEXY SWAP -- you can connect with the group here to read the rules and the monthly themes. These are the motifs I assembled from my first batch.
Since the hexies are 1", I went to my 2 1/2" strip stash -- no problem finding what I need 98% of the time. It's small and a bit messy, but I've made so many quilts out of it over the past 20 years -- it's a sourdough box -- leftovers go in and quilts come out.
But I really needed to mail mine off on Tuesday morning or I would miss the deadline, so just this once, I glued them (and endured the sticky fingers). Because the deadline was tight, my tendency to make the process systematic kicked in automatically. I laid out the first set of hexies wrong side up on a vinyl covered notebook that was at hand.
Then I placed a paper on each one. I use Fiskars Extra Large Hexagon Punch to make my papers from all those little advertising cards that fall out of magazines and come in the mail.
After a couple clumsy attempts, I finally hit on gluing down every other side first.
And coming back for a second round to glue down the remaining three.
At this point, placing two fingers at each end of the seam being folded over helped me keep the corners tighter where the adjacent seams lap over each other -- really made my fingers sticky! I'm not sure if it actually went faster, but it felt like a smoother process to me.
Here they are being auditioned just for fun.
Stacked up and tacked together ready to mail!! I made it!
Turns out the notebook was a good work surface since I could clean it up with a quick wipe of a damp cloth and the glue washed off my fingers easily, too. While I still prefer thread basting, the glue basting does have it's charms and I learned I can tolerant sticky fingers for a short time.
Mary Huey
I just began paper piecing recently, and I've been printing out hexies on paper and cutting them out. I hadn't heard of the Fiskars punch for papers before - amazing! I will have to find one! And that's a great idea to use up advertisements, too!
ReplyDeleteThe Fiskars punch is usually in the scrap booking department at stores like Michaels and Pat Catans -- "Large" is 3/4" and Extra Large is 1".
DeleteThey look very sweet - sticky fingers or not!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is brilliant. I just started EPP but I use a glue stick to tack the paper to the fabric and then thread baste the sides without going through the paper so I can remove the papers more easily later (for machine applique possibly... I haven't exactly decided yet.)
ReplyDelete"tack the paper to the fabric" -- hmmm, what a good idea. I usually baste and the way you do.
DeleteHmm. I must be doing it wrong as I never have sticky fingers when I glue my hexies. I glue the edge of the paper and that seems to be enough. Thanks for the tip about gluing every other side - that works better for me.
ReplyDeleteHmm. I think you must be doing it right -- I just glue the edge of the paper, too. Maybe I'm just messy with glue. Did you get the notice that you won my give-away for a copy of Quilters Just Wanna' Have Fun a few weeks ago?
DeleteI rarely get any glue on my fingers and never on the work surface. I just run a very thin line inside the paper edge to catch near the fabric edge, running the glue stick on one of it's edges, not the flat face of the glue.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Karen -- I'll have to pay attention to whether I use the flat or the edge.
DeleteI remember the yummy paste in grade school. Thanks for that reminder.
DeleteHugs
Sometimes a dab of glue in the middle really helps huh! I laughed about your st icky fingers as I still love to peel the elmers glue off my fingers when I use glue with my second graders. LOL!!!!!Perfect post to rejuvenate!!! So glad you shared it! THANK YOU!
ReplyDelete