Quick Tips: English Paper Piecing

If you're someone who prefers to base your Hexagons in English paper piecing, using your hand sewing needle and thread, as opposed to using some kind of removable glue. One of the hardest things to do is to get started because it can be very difficult to have your, your hexagon that you want to be basing in place and be holding one side and the other side and still be able to pick up your hand sewing needle and thread and get it going while keeping your fabric nice and secure around that hexagon without it shifting. So that's why some people like to use glue to hold it in place to get started. But if you don't want to use any glue and you just want to use your hand sewing needle and thread, I recommend you get some of these quilt binding clips or any kind of sewing clip and that is going to be how we get started. So you're going to take two of your sides and you're gonna fold it in, hold one and then you're gonna fold in your next one and then you're going to take your clip and hold it right in place here.

Not gonna be tempting to want to now sew this one first, but I want you to put the clip on first and then sew this one last, what that's going to allow us to do is work our way around this entire Hexagon. Making sure we're folding that fabric nice and taut around the edges. And then if anything shifts at all, we can still then remove our clip and then tighten anything up at the very end, uh with, with this one when we stitch it. So now that I'm ready to start stitching, I'm gonna fold in my first side, bring in my hand sewing needle and thread and I'm just going to take a small little stitch through the fabric. Now, there's lots of different methods that uh you can do this with which direction you sew which direction you take your stitch.

But all you really need to do is make one little stitch there to hold those two folded pieces right there at the corner. Now we're gonna move on to the next side again. I'm gonna fold it over, take a little bite stitch into just the fabric. I'm not going through that paper at all and I wanna pull to where my thread lays nice and flat along the fabric. I'm not pulling super tight.

I don't want to bend the paper at all. Make my stitch, go to the next one, fold in my edge, take my stitch make sure it lays flat against that fabric and then we'll do our next slide, right. Like, so again, take that little stitch work my way all the way around till I get to my clip where I started for the same, take that stitch and very quickly and easily I've made it all the way around my Hexagon and now I'm going to give it a quick check by taking my clip off and I wanna make sure that there's no sort of wiggle anywhere in that paper uh around the edges of my hexagon. So if there is, I can kind of use my fingers to push this Hexagon piece of paper as far into these corners that I've just stitched as possible from this side and from this side. And then once I know that it is right along all of those edges, nice and taut, I can come in here and do my last stitch in my last corner and I can go ahead and tie a knot, secure that and I'm ready to move on to my next piece that I wanna stitch.

So again, if you're going to do your, all of your English paper piecing hexes basting them, using your hand sewing needle and thread, start using these binder clips again, fold in those first two edges, first clip those and then stitch that last. So you can make sure that your fabric is nice and taut around your hexagons and you'll be ready to put these together in the fun little project in no time.