Well, now I feel a little silly.

Remember when I was talking about how no one has time for hand sewing and blah blah and why was it covered in the scrap class?

I guess the reason was to plant a seed, because I came across this pillow tutorial at Sew Mama Sew and I realized that I didn’t like the hexagons from the class because they were too big.  If I’m working with hexagons three inches on a side, I might as well machine sew them.  It would involve Y seams (which I’m not interested in trying yet), but those pieces of fabric are being enough not to get chewed up by the machine (even mine).

That, and I didn’t like the idea of basting through the paper.  It seemed somehow inelegant to me.

The pillow also showed me that hexagons aren’t all about Grandmother’s Flower Gardens, which is a pattern I’m aware of and don’t love.  You can do diamonds!  And other things!  Plus, that pillow got me thinking about a Settlers of Catan pillow, since the game tiles are hexagons and that would look awesome.  We have the game somewhere in the basement and I could either print the fabric at home or use Spoonflower–I’ve been wanting to try them but haven’t had a good excuse.

In short, I think I’ve been bitten by the EPP bug.  I went by the local fabric store and got some 1″ hexagons, but when I got them home, they seemed too big.  I went back and got some 1/2″ hexagons, which seem perfect.

I’m not sure what I’m going to use them for yet, but I’ve started playing around with the orange fabrics I got for Sec’s pumpkin quilt, and the few orange scraps from the eBay scrap boxes, just basting them around the 1/2″ papers and seeing how I like it.

This looks like a possible layout, but I’m not sure yet.  Prim walked by and said that his favorite part was the tree (on the lower right), so I may do more fussy-cutting, though the orange fabrics I have don’t feature much in the way of tiny motifs, besides what you see here.

I do think I like the idea of being comfortable not knowing what I’m going to make (besides single-color diamonds in this size)–and knowing that the making will take a long time.  I’m excited about the project, but also relaxed about it so I can enjoy seeing how it turns out.