Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Japanese Quilting - Patchwork Tsushin

Japanese quilting magazines and books are one of my indulgences, along with lattes, chocolate, mystery books and TV shows...

Anyway, I was in need of a bit of a pick-me-up of the non-food variety last week and that took me to the June 2012 edition of Patchwork Tsushin.



Isn't the cover luscious, with all those hexies!

I buy these magazines as eye candy.  I don't read Japanese, though the many diagrams make it possible to figure out the directions for most items shown.  Most of the sewing is done by hand, not machine, which is a big difference compared to US quilting magazine projects. 

This issue is devoted mostly to English paper piecing (hence the cover) and the stained glass technique.  While stained glass doesn't much interest me, the hexie craze is starting to suck me in.  Between this magazine and projects I've seen on blogs here and there, I've started to think about starting a project. 

I started an English paper piecing project a few years ago but did not get very far.  I think the pieces were too small and the scale too daunting! 

My only other foray into hexagons was Mon Petit Chou, which is actually made with half-hexagons and sewn by machine in strips.  I recommend this if you like the look as it is actually quite easy.

Mon Petit Chou, uses half hexagons sewn together in strips


The project I'm considering is from the Fat Quarterly blog and uses 1.5" hexagons.  It looks do-able to me. 




The blog has been posting an on-going tutorial with techniques and directions.  What do you think?  Should I go for it?

1 comment:

  1. Go for it! Both Nat and I have hexie projects going as well although hers is much more involved than mine. We could have a hexie day!

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