Almost as soon as we got home from Montana, we had to leave again on another trip, this time a 16 hour round trip drive (in a rented minivan) to Central Illinois to attend my cousin’s wedding.

In thinking about both trips, I knew I wanted a couple of small portable sewing projects to bring with me for the breaks in wrangling children. One of the projects was my slow summer stitching, which I quickly finished in Montana then got to wear (more on this soon). My second project was hexagon English paper piecing.

I had never done English paper piecing before these trips - at one time I probably would have thought it was too fussy for me –  but since I love the hand stitching of the Alabama Stitch Book projects, I figured I would probably like making hexagons.  I was right.

Sewing these hexagons was relaxing and fun, because they sew up so quickly; after working on them on and off, I now have 90 finished hexagons. The flight attendant thought I was crazy to concentrate so hard on tiny fabric squares and paper hexagons, and to sew everything by hand.  I love that the materials are few – cotton thread, hand sewing needle, a pin, small scissors, fabric squares, paper hexagons, and a bag to store everything in. I bought the 1″ hexagons, because I wanted something small enough to use up small fabric scraps but not small enough to be ridiculous.  For directions, I referred to these and these and these found via this.  I cut my squares with scissors, not worrying if they were perfectly straight, but I did cut a 2.5 inch square out of thin cardboard to use as a template.

So, what am I going to make with all these hexagons?  I’m not completely sure, but I think they will most likely become pillows as I could use some new ones in my den. Even though sewing these hexagons is fun, I think making a quilt out of them might border slightly on psychotic.  If I do mention a quilt in the future, please remind me I said that.