A Place For Hexies

 I had this toppling over stack of hexies ready to go and I was worried they were going to get mixed in with the mess of scraps from working on the Scrap Tape. So they needed a place to hang out together and I had saved a magnetic closure box that was close to the right shape and size. Formerly housed a FitBit. Of course I needed a rainbow, so I used some Inktense blocks on some heavy sketchbook paper.

After brushing on some water and letting the rainbow dry, I trimmed it down to close to the exact size and glued it into the base of the box.

I had to cover up the FitBit logo and UPC codes with some nearly matching washi tape.

It's a really nice box, heavy and a solid closure that sticks with no fiddling around. 

It fits all the hexies I have so far with lots of room for more. I could even have a little sewing kit in here.

A rainbow of Hexies in a rainbow box. Now to sew some together....

Hexie Time

EEeeeepp, so I'm actually doing some EPP while I'm laying about and recovering.

I found a very nice set of free templates for hexagons and printed them out on card stock.

I had done my initial stab at trying out some hexies way back in 2016 with a little kit I picked up at QuiltCon, and they were 3/4". 

To try and add to this existing flower, I printed out the 1"hexie template that I had just downloaded at 75% scaling and it worked out perfectly. I just had to hand-write on each one 3/4" so that I don't get them mixed up.

I also bought myself a set of literally the only EPP papers that they had at my LQS the day before my surgery. These have a lightweight fusible on one side, and are made out of 50% water soluble material and 50% stabilizer. This means that they are intended to stay in after you've stitched the hexies together. These are 1", so they will not fit in with the 3/4" ones I began experimenting with (I guess?) unless there are some shapes that could go in-between? But I really do like the idea of the fusible, a pretty innovative idea. The instructions are pretty clear, so I'll give these a go just to try them out. They also sell sheets of the appliqué paper that they're cut from, which could be cut in a Cricut to custom shapes and sizes....

I was going to try out these 1" fusible hexie "papers" with the hexie fabric that was included in the Best Besties Box as well as doing some fussy cutting of motifs and then some of the solids too. It seemed like too good of a coinky-dink to ignore. 

But then I discovered that the hexie print is exactly 3/4", so I switched plans.

I found my Sewline glue pen and got to work after fussy cutting out some of the hexies.

Pretty nice!

It went pretty fast getting these 11 hexies cut and glued.

They're very fun to play around with. I can see why people find them sort of addictive.

Definitely a lot of fun. And I haven't even started stitching yet.

I don't think the new hexies play all that well with the original flower, but nothing says these all have to end up in a quilt or project together. For now I'm just having fun playing with them.

Giant Hexies

 

I won something from the Quilters Take A Moment event! A package arrived from Hoffman Fabrics, and inside were two  packs of 40 enormous pre-cut hexies. 

The fabrics are a nice range of colors and the printed patterns are contemporary.

When I read the list of winners and what we each had won, it just said Hoffman Fabrics hexies, so I had pictured something in the 2" range, to use in English paper piecing, etc. So I was surprised to get these giant sized ones, I think they're 8" across.

These are not that by a long shot, or well...several extra inches.

And they helpfully included a pattern as well, A Hop Skip & A Jump. Some of which involves cutting up the hexies into equilateral triangles (?) and adding sashing to each shape. These will be fun to play with and I'm surprised at how happy it made me to win something.