Hannukah Quilted Pillow Tutorial

I am hosting a sit & sew at our Feast of Tabernacles celebration this fall.  I love English Paper Piecing (EPP) and thought this might be a quick and portable project to share my love of hexagons (hexies) with the ladies at my fellowship.

My pillow is 12"

Introduction:

We will be gluing the fabric to the hexagon papers and sewing them together by hand sewng a 'whip' stitch.  We will then hand applique the hexagon "flower" to the center of the background square.  We will finish by quilting the pillow top.  On my sample I used a walking foot on my Juki sewing machine and did dense pencil stick quilting.  You can do any type of quilting that you like (including hand quilting!).  Lastly, we will create an opening at the back, and add the binding to finish off our pillow.

Supplies:

1 - 14" background square (I used white solid)

1 - 14" quilt backing square (this will be inside the pillow and can be scrap fabric)

1 - 14" batting square

2 - 9" x 14" rectangles (I used white solid)

19 hexagon papers (I used 1 1/2" hexies).  You measure not through the middle but on the side of the hexagon.

Three coordinating fabrics:

• 1 for center Hexie (I chose a white Hannukah print)
• 6 for the first ring around the center hexie (I chose a dark Hannukah print)
• 12 for the second ring (I chose a medium value Hannukah print)

Note:  Of course you can choose any fabric you like and the Moda mini charms make great hexies because they are assorted 2 1/2" squares.  You don't have to use identical fabrics for your flower.

Needle

Thread (I used a 60wt polyester.  The thinner the thread, the less likely your stitches will show on the front)

Glue pen

Thread snips

Cut:

1 - 2 1/2" square of the center print

6 - 2 1/2" squares of the dark print (first ring around the 'flower')

12 - 2 1/2" squares of the medium print (second ring around the "flower").

Preparing the hexies:
Prepare your hexagons by centering the hexie paper on the center of the 2 1/2" square.  Note:  You can do what we call "fussy cutting" your squares so that any emblem in the fabric is centered,  You can see that I wasn't that careful.

You can either trim your square to a hexagon with a 3/8" margin/seam allowance or leave it as a square.  The choice is yours.

Apply glue on one side (sparingly) of the hexagon paper and fold down the fabric using the edge of the hexie as a guide.  Moving countercockwise around the hexie shape, glue the paper then fold the fabric, and continue until all the sides are glued down.  The glue I used is purple when it goes on but it dries clear and washes out.

Sewing them together:

Take your center hexie and one of the dark hexies and place them right sides together.  Using a single strand of thread with a knot on one end, begin sewing one side of the hexies together using a whip stitch.

You can sew towards you or sew away from you.  It doesn't matter as long as you're consistent.

Once you have sewn to the end of the first side, open your work, (it will be like a hinge) travel to the outside edge of the sewn dark hexie by inserting your needle between the paper and the fabric on the edge (it might get a bit stuck on the glue), so your needle and thread are on the outside edge, ready to add a new hexie. Take a second dark hexagon and place it next to the first dark hexagon and sew down on the dark sides that meet together.  Once you get to the inside corner, you'll have to pivot to now sew down the second dark hexie to the white center.  You can fold the dark hexie to accomplish this.  You will repeat this process until you've done the first dark hexie round.  Repeat for the medium second hexie round.

Once you have your bexagon "flower" down we will now  remove the hexagon papers, press it well and then sew it down to a background.  You can either sew it down by hand applique or by machine.  

Start by folding your background square in quarters and either press the folds or mark them with an eraseable pen so you have registration marks to align your hexagon flower.

Once you've got your flower centered vertically and horizontally, either pin or glue in place.  Sew your flower down using your preferred method (by hand or by machine).  If you're sewing it down by machine, I would suggest a straight stitch about 1/16" to 1/8" from the edge of the hexagon shape.  You want to make sure your flower doesn't flip up on the edge.  You can also use a zig zag stitch.

Once your flower is stitched down, we will use our piece of batting, a scrap of fabric 14" square (optional) and quilt the pillow.  I chose to do straight line quilting using my walking foot, but you can do free motion quilting, hand quilting, or any method of your choosing.  You can even leave it unquilted if you just want to sew down your hexagon and simply finish your pillow.  I like the texture and stability created by the quilting so that was my choice.

Note:  One of my students suggested quilting the background fabric first so that the hexies didn't have the stitches on top.  I think this is an excellent option!

Hand applique

Machine quilting with walking foot

Creating the pillow backing.  Create finished edges by folding over and sewing edges

The folded over edge will face down.  You will just see the straight line of sewing when you pillow is finished.

Adding binding once the pillow backing is in place

Joining the binding edges.

Sewing down the binding to the back of the pillow.

Binding added to the back

Press the binding from the back to the front and clip in place.

Using matching thread to the your binding, machine sew the binding down.  Make sure to choose white bobbin thread so your stitches aren't dark blue on the back in contrast to the white backing.

Using your sewing machine, stitch close to the inside edge of the binding.

Miter your corner.  Fold the bottom binding up and fold the side binding over it so you aren't fighting with the corner.  This is the way the fabric wants to move during the process.

ta da!  All finished.

It is now ready for your pillow insert!

You don't have to make this a pillow.  If you would rather just have a table topper or a small wall hanging, you would just create a one piece back and following the remaining instructions, rather than having the overlapping flaps that open to insert the pillow form,

More options:

You can make multiple squares and make a quilt top.

You can make your flowers scrappy but check out your fabric values (light, medium or dark) between the three 'rows' if you want distinct 'rounds'.

You make make your hexagons and background bigger to enlarge your project.  Hexagon papers come in a variety of sizes.

There are different shapes other than hexagons.  If you google english paper piecing or look on Pinterest, you will find multiple possibilities and lots of inspiration.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.  

Until next time!

Mavis