Adventures in English Paper Piecing

What has 6 sides and such an addictive draw that they will cause you to sit for hours cutting, pasting, basting, and stitching them by the score? No, it’s not the mending pile! These little cuties can travel with you wherever you go, take up very little space in your purse, and require only a few supplies to keep you stitching them by the hundreds. And when you put them all together, they make a most beautiful pieces of handwork. I speak of English Paper Pieced Hexagons. A little research on the web reveals that these little shapes have enticed quilters for hundreds of years. One of the most popular quilt blocks made from the beloved “Hexie” is called Grandmother’s Flower Garden, concentric rounds of pieced hexes made into individual “flowers.” I have two such quilts in my own house, one an antique, the other made a few years ago as a gift from Grandma to my daughter. The second one I mention is made from pieces of dresses my mom sewed for me when I was a child. Hexies look great scrappy! No real color theory needs to be involved if that’s not your thing. And they are a great stash-buster. If you don’t want to do a huge project, they are equally adorable appliquéd onto small projects like pouches or handbags, maybe a bookmark or baby bib. Just the right amount of cute.

I love a good story. If any quilt could tell a story, which I believe they all do, the EPP Hexie quilts are full of all kinds of tales simply because they can travel to so many places from beginning to end. I can’t really say that about projects made sitting at my machine with my back hunched over, snipping and clipping in the same position hour after hour. I love that too, just in a different way.

Let me see…if I rifle through my stash of EPP hexagons, I could tell lots of stories. They have traveled so many places: from car to train to plane, from native U.S. soil to Eastern Europe, from countless music lessons to a 3-hour glucose screening (I passed). They even made it through a car crash (so did I, but with more scrapes and bruises then they did). My husband teases me about what I could possibly be doing with the hundreds (in his estimation) of pieces I have cut and basted. I don’t know, but I have surely enjoyed every minute.

I have carried around an EPP kit in my purse for years now. In my little pouch I have a few simple supplies: paper templates (printed off at home), needles, spool of thread, washable glue stick, small scissors, and small scraps of fabric. That’s it! It fits perfectly in my purse so that wherever I go, I have something to keep my hands busy.

I love the slowness of such handwork. No deadline. No stress or rush. Very little picking out mistakes! Just quiet repetitive motion. Calm. Stories woven into cloth in the gentlest of ways. Memories rekindled. Prayers for those we know and love.

Life is hectic and fast-paced. That is not something we can always change. We live in a time when you can even make “quick quilts” if you want to. That is perfect when lack of time calls for such a thing. But here we are in the lazy days of summer. I have relished the slowness summer brings. Time to sit back and enjoy the calm, the last few days before this baby in my belly makes his or her grand entrance into our home. Dreaming about who this person is, holding a newborn again, what kind of gift this new child will be to our family. I think God puts this need to slow down inside every woman at this particular time for a very good reason. We need time to reflect and prepare for this impending life changing event.

That’s what I’ve been doing!