Adventures in Paper Piecing, Fabric Scraps Obsession

All 99 are finally done!

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I’ve been blogging about this quilt for 7 years, it is my oldest UFO. I won’t even bother linking previous posts as there are a lot of tierneycreates posts about this English Paper Pieced quilt, I will just give you the history and bring you up to speed.

In October 2016 the first issue of Quiltfolk Magazine (which was about Oregon quilters and I lived in Oregon at the time) was published and I fell head over heels in love with the quilt on the magazine’s cover:

I was determined to learn English Paper Piecing (EPP) so I could make this quilt and I purchased a book about how to do and enlisted the help of several quilters with EPP experience. My late husband Terry helped me punch out the hexagon templates from scrap card stock paper and in 2017 I began the journey to make 99 hexagon flowers (each one has 6 EPP hexies, so 594 hexies were needed) to make this quilt. I primarily used fabric scraps to make the hexies.

After a while I became proficient at making the hexagons or “hexies” to build the hexagon flowers for each block, and assembling the hexagon flowers. Over the next 7 years I would sporadically work on this very portable project. This project has been around the U.S. as well as to Ireland in various little project sacks I’ve stored it in.

In late April I went on a trip to New York City with my sister (separate post to follow) and finished the last of the 99 hexagon flowers at a tea house in Brooklyn that we frequented during our trip.

Tea and Hexies in Brooklyn

Here are the 99 completed hexagon flowers:

Some of the hexagon flowers configuration are repeated because I had a lot of those scrap fabrics to work with such as the piles at the top of this image below:

And some have few to no repeats such as these solid color hexagon flowers at the bottom of the image below:

And finally I used up the left over hexies in various colors of solid color scrap fabrics to finish up the hexagon flowers (see the bottom of the image below):

So now that the 99 are done, I will use fat quarters to put together coordinating background fabrics to each hexagon flower.

If you are interested in learning EPP there are lots of free instructional website and videos online like this one:

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Published by tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Quilter, crafter, obsessive tea drinker and lover of all furry creatures (especially dogs and cats) - join me on my tierneycreates blog as I share stories from "A Crafter's Life".

40 thoughts on “All 99 are finally done!”

  2. It must feel great getting the last of the hexes ready to go. I’m happy to hear that you spent some of your time in New York sewing. Will the next stage go more quickly? Paper piecing has always intrigued me, but it seemed overwhelming. I’m looking forward to seeing your continued process.

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  3. There are short term goals, long term goals and then life long goals…after 7 years of hexies in progress I’m thinking this one is close to being a full on life long quilty goal? Lookin’ good – best of all it’s portable and you like the handwork involved.

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  6. Hallelujah and Yay!! I can”t wait to see these fabulous flowers hanging on a wall in your house! Um….do you have a wall with space for a new creation?🤔🤗

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      1. I think you might consider a rotation schedule. Mo can create a hanging storage like the large rug displays at Home Depot for all the beauties in waiting or taking a rest. He might have to build an addition however. If anyone can…..👍🌞💛🌞🧡

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  8. Love this quilt. I love english paper piecing but the one thing I don’t love is hand sewing long rows of hexagons together. Usually at that point I give up and put it in the cupboard. A quilt where you can to switch at that point to something you could finish by machine is fantastic

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  12. WOW! Congratulations on finishing all of those hexies! That is an impressive achievement, and they are all so beautiful 🙂 The color combinations of the individual flowers and of the mix of all of them is just breathtaking!

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  14. awesome

    and now for a question/s “how many other quilt pictures have you fallen in love with” and either on the “backburner or in small project goal bags?”

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  16. Congratulations on finishing the hexies before the ‘seven year itch’. It is going to be a gorgeous quilt. I want to make one too!

    It is delightful that you stitched the last one at a Boston tea house.

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