I’m linking up today with lots of creative people over at ‘My Creative Space‘ and also with Tash @ Little bit of Thyme for ‘This is Sew Weekly’. It’s been nice to dust of the sewing machine!

When I was lucky enough to visit Liberty of London last December (it was incredible by the way – just look at the building), the only fabric I bought was a pack of pre-cut hexagons. I managed to restrain myself and that was helped by the fact I was shopping with the hubby

The pack contains 50 hexagons, with only a couple of double-ups so I was suitably thrilled when I opened it once we were home.

Now what to do with these lovely little pieces of fabric? One thing I did not want to do was paper piece them. I do enjoy paper piecing but it is time consuming and I already have a hexagon WIP sitting in a box from a few years ago.

I spent a little bit of time on Pinterest and collected some of these images – all featuring hexagons.

Hexagon Quilt from ‘We Shall Sew‘ // Modern Hexagon Quilted Pillow from ‘ReannaLily Designs‘ // Hexagon Tetris Bag from ‘V and Co.‘

So how to applique without resorting to hand-sewing? I did a little bit of experimenting and funnily enough it worked (I’m sure it’s not a new technique!) so I’ll share what I did here:

1. Cut a piece of thin non-fusible interfacing to the same size and shape of your hexagon

2. Place the hexagon right-side down onto the interfacing

3. Sew around the hexagon with a 1/4 seam allowance, leaving a gap for turning.

It can be a bit tricky to know where to pivot your sewing machine foot, but as you can see on my 1/4 inch foot above, the measurement from the needle to the part of the foot where it ‘thins’ is exactly 1/4 inch.

4. Trim the corners – carefully!

5. Turn right-side out and gently push out the corners. I use a large knitting needle that has a nice blunt point.

6. Press, making sure the turning hole is nice and neat.

7. To applique I used a small stitch close to the edge of the hexagon to secure it to the fabric underneath. I think a hand quilting stitch with embroidery thread would look nice too. Alternatively if you don’t want any stitching visible you can use the needle-turn applique technique.

 

The hexagons I used to practice on were two rather random Liberty prints in the predominantly floral pack!

You could also use fusible interfacing, making sure the fusible part is right side out when you have finished. But, that does mean you can’t press your hexagon until you have placed it onto your base fabric – otherwise you will fuse it to your ironing board.

Now I just have to decide on an applique project for my precious Liberty hexagons!