It's been years now that hexagons have been all the rage in quilt-blogland. There seem to be hundreds of tutorials, flickr groups, quilt-alongs. People are fussy cutting their fabric into swiss cheese! And all the while I was patiently stitching diamond to diamond, wondering what all the fuss was about.
Until this spring, when i decided to give it a try...
And you know what? I don't like it.
They go together quickly and in a short amount of time you can have a fairly large section pieced, but I don't like the actual piecing them together.. my diamonds always came together into little units of 3, 5, 8, or 12, and then fit together like puzzle pieces. This hex business is just -add one, -add one, -add one...
I know it would be different if I were using paper templates that bend, or if I chose some type of pretty pattern, but you know me-- Scrappy, Using what I have -- and so this is how I feel.
I piece 6 petals onto a center hexagon before popping out the center one and folding to stitch the petals together. This is necessary because the Quilt Patis templates don't bend like paper and awkwardly holding the 2 petals and doing a less-than-perfect stab stitch got old back with
this project (when i used to join 3 diamonds to make a hexagon). I love English paper piecing for its simple rhythmic motions and its ability to relax and calm me. I don't have much patience for awkward routines and so I try to adjust where I can to eliminate them. I think when I tire of diamonds I should buy some paper templates and make something like
this one Bonnie is working on. Until then, I don't think I'll be calling myself a hex fan. If this project gets done it will sit to remind me of my short ride on the bandwagon and then how I jumped off, content to let the insanity go on without me. I'm not sure I want to party with all those hex crazy people anyway..
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