English Paper Piecing Session 3: Hexagons

While we'll be going over three different shapes of English paper piecing, I'm going to start with the most common one or the one that you see in finished English paper piecing designs, or the one that's sort of most talked about, and that is the hexagon and is used for all sorts of different fun designs, and it's sort of a really easy one to practice on because, as opposed to the clamshell, which has some curved edges, and the diamond, which has more pointy points, this one is a little bit easier to start practicing with. So we're going to start with the hexagon and I'm going to show you how you can baste your fabric to your paper using the hand stitching method. You're gonna be using your hand sewing needle and your thread. Again, I mentioned earlier that you want to select the right needle. So I have a fairly thin needle, a fine needle, but it's nice and long, which makes it just easier to work with, easier to grip. And then I'm using my fabric, or my fabric, my thread. You can use either a 100% cotton thread or a cotton-polyester blend thread. When you are doing hand sewing, a lot of times it's personal preference as to whether or not you want to use a single strand of thread or a double strand of thread. Some people find that their thread knots up or tangles less if you're using a single strand. However, if you are someone who has always sewn using a double strand of thread, you can still use that for the basting method because again, these basting stitches are going to be removed and you're never going to see them. But when we actually get into assembly, you want to be using your single strand of thread because it makes it more of an invisible stitch. So you're going to thread your needle and now you need to tie a knot at the end. So there's a couple of different ways that you can tie your knot. Some people like to find the end of the thread, wrap it around the needle and pull it down to tie a knot. That works for me 50% of the time. Sometimes I pull the thread all the way down and it doesn't actually end up in a knot. So for me, the easiest way to tie a knot is to moisten the tip of your finger, then you're just going to hold the thread between your thumb and your forefinger. You're going to wrap it around your pointer finger, you're going to roll it between your fingers like so, and now just use your middle finger and slide it down, and that creates a nice knot. So you can see our little knot right there. So for me, that's the easiest way to tie a knot, but obviously use whatever your preferred knot tying method is. The next thing we need to do is get our fabric that we've already cut out and our paper template that we've already cut out. Now, obviously your paper template should be smaller than your fabric. If it's not, you need to go back and make sure you cut out the right sizes of things because you should have enough room around the outside edge of your paper template on your fabric by either that 1/4 inch on all sides or 3/8 inch on all sides if you're just starting out. When you are putting your paper template onto your fabric, you want to make sure that your template goes on the wrong side of your fabric, that way you can fold around the edges, and you can either just hold it in place, some people like to pin it in place, or even though we're using a sewing method for basting, you can use a temporary adhesive to hold your paper to your fabric just until you get started. So my preferred method for holding my paper onto my fabric is actually using, again, another paper crafting product. This is just a removable adhesive runner. You put just a little bit of it in the middle of your shape and it just holds it right to your fabric just very, very easily so you don't even have to worry about it coming off on the fabric. It doesn't really stay on the fabric, it'll come off on your paper when you take your paper off, but it just holds it there so that your paper doesn't slide around on your fabric. Go ahead and pick up your fabric and your paper shape and you're going to start by folding the edge of the fabric, folding the fabric over the edge of the paper. I like to start in a corner on a small shape like this. I'll demonstrate a larger shape in a minute, but on small shapes here, you really only need to be doing your stitching in the corners. So I am going to fold one edge in, I'm going to then pinch it with my left hand, fold in the next edge here, and pinch that corner. Now I can go ahead and bring in my hand sewing needle and thread and I'm going to bring it, it doesn't matter which side you start at, but for me, I find it easier to bring it up towards me. So I'm going to come from the right side of the shape through to the wrong side, making sure I'm catching all of those layers right there in the corner, and go ahead and pull up a stitch. I'm going to go ahead and hold this still with one of my hands, using my thumb to keep the fabric wrapped around the paper. Move over to the next corner, again, I'm going to fold it in, pinch it with my thumb, and now take a stitch in the next direction, in the opposite direction. So if I came up the first time, I'm going to go down this next time right like so. Continue holding it and just moving around the shape, folding up the edge like so, and now taking a stitch right like this. Continuing around, folding up the edge and taking a stitch. So with these small shapes like this, you really only have to be stitching in these corners or in these turns because that is what is the most important part to make sure you have those nice crisp turns there and it's not going to come off along the edge in between, so you don't have to worry about that. Just going all the way around the edge. When you get to the last corner, again, you want to always be holding it so it doesn't come undone, but just fold the last corner in like so, take your last stitch, and then you do need to tie some kind of knot to hold all of these stitches that you just did in place. So I'm just going to flip it over here. So whatever side your thread ends up on, that's the side that you're going to be tying a knot. I just take and grab a tiny little stitch of fabric, pull my thread through until there's a small, little loop left, then I'm just going to insert my needle through that loop and go ahead and pull tight. Now, generally, if you're doing any other kind of hand sewing or hand stitching, you would do like two or three of those knots because you really want to make sure that that knot stays in place. But again, these are basting stitches which will eventually be removed, so you don't want to have to work extra hard to take that knot out, so just do one. And then I like to leave a nice, long thread tail, so about an inch or two, when I clip my thread after I tie my knot. That way, there's less risk of that knot accidentally coming untied if I'm making, say, 100 of these little hexagons and I'm just going to toss it into a bag until I'm ready to assemble. So that is how quick and easy it can be to hand baste or baste using your hand sewing needle and thread, one of these small hexagon shapes. Now, if you're doing a larger hexagon shape, you're going to need to do a little bit more stitching. So again, we have our fabric that we have cut out, we have our paper template that I am ensuring is smaller than my fabric, and you can see there's not quite as much room around the outside edge. So the one that I just demonstrated was that 3/8 inch seam allowance. This one is only going to be a 1/4 inch. So again, it's still going to be the same practice. You want to make sure that you have your fabric with the wrong side up. You can go ahead and take your temporary adhesive, if you choose to use this, put a little bit of it on the back of your paper template. Go ahead and center your paper template onto the fabric right like so. Push down so it holds it. Get your needle and thread ready, which just means you need to tie another knot. So again, I like to use my thumb and forefinger, just roll the thread and then pull so I get a nice knot. And now with a shape that's much larger like this, I'm going to need to do stitches in more areas. So rather than just doing stitches here in the corners, I'm going to do one in the corner, one in the middle of the side, corner, middle, corner, and go all the way around. So since I'm going to be stitching in the middle, it's easier to start in the middle, so I'm gonna start there by folding the fabric over the edge of the paper. Again, I like to start coming towards myself. Just do a stitch here. I can move up to the corner. Again, I'm just holding it in place with my fingers like so. You can take another stitch here going down and continue around the shape. Now, if you are doing this and this is your first time doing, say, the 1/4-inch seam allowance or you're just having difficulty keeping the fabric folded around that edge, you can take more stitches. So say you're having a hard time keeping your fabric folded. You can go maybe just a half an inch over to the next direction and take a stitch, and then keep it folded, go about a half inch again, do another stitch. You can do more stitches all along the edge, just know that the more stitches you do the more stitches you're going to have to remove. So you don't want to be doing lots of really, really tiny like actual sewing stitches. Remember that these are basting stitches that you are eventually going to remove, so just make sure they're nice and big and easy to see. That's another thing to keep in mind is making sure that your thread is easy to see so you can easily remove it. So for me, obviously this is some bright yellow fabric and I'm using some pretty dark gray thread, which makes it really easy to see for when I get to the removing of that basting stitches. So I'm just going to continue around this shape. Again, I'm at the corner now, so I've folded my corners in, then go ahead and take a stitch. I can come around. Again, I can go every half inch or so, or I can do one here in the middle and then continue on to the corner. And I'm just going to go all the way around this shape just like I did with the small version right like so. And when I get to the end, I'll tie a knot. Now, I'm using a single strand of thread, but you can see that now I no longer see the end of my thread, it's because I need to pull it up. So make sure you don't lose that other end of your thread, make sure you're always just using your single strand. So go ahead and pull it up a little bit so you don't lose that end and then continue stitching all the way around. So one more side to finish up here, do this corner, folding it in like so. Take a stitch. A couple more just either moving to the center or moving over about a half inch or so. Bring it back up. Do the last corner right here, and then go ahead and tie your knot and clip your thread. So always make sure that you're tying that knot at the end. Again, you want to make sure that all of that time you just spent doing all those basting stitches isn't wasted. You want to make sure that everything stays in place. Just do one knot, not multiple, and then when you clip your threads, make sure you're leaving that nice thread tail, so an inch or two, so it doesn't come undone. And so it's really pretty quick and easy. You can do it a lot quicker, especially once you get into the rhythm of it and you're not talking the whole time you're doing it, you can go through it pretty quick. So whether you're doing a small shape or a large shape, this is how you're going to use your hand sewing needle and thread to baste your fabric onto your paper template. So make as many of these as you want, and then we're going to move on to doing our next shape.