While in Houston this past fall with my exhibit I became inspired by the beautiful hexie quilts across the aisle and got sucked into the English paper piecing hook, line and sinker! Of course I needed to do one with vintage hankies and silks.
I rummaged thru my hankie stash and chose several that I loved...I decided to use initials that represented my favorite daughters Jenny & Emily (they're my only two), and my initial and our last name initial and throw in a couple more designs for interest. I stabilized them and then cut out a 6 1/2" circle.
I had some very thin large silk hankies in a bone/goldish color and stabilized those for the hexies and then used the dull side of white Radiance for the diamonds (stabilized too).
Assembling this small project turned into a love/hate relationship. LOVED the idea but working with very thin silk, even though it was stabilized, was a challenge. I didn't get the nice, precise intersections that I was looking for.
A good friend recommended that I place this piece on top of another fabric and I had the perfect vintage linen tablecloth for it to go on. I'm going to applique the entire piece to the tablecloth...which I'm in the process of doing now. I'll machine quilt this piece and I think the quilting will pull down the seams and make them look somewhat better. I have a heavy Tire Silk (Superior Threads) that I'm going to do a stem-stitch around the outside and inside hexie edges to polish those off. I'm also going to add some little freshwater pearls at the intersections to add interest and of course hide my buggy intersections.
I think this will be wonderful when it's done but I thought you may appreciate the process I've gone thru to make this work. Off to my next hexie project!
Hugs, Cindy :)