Embark on a Quilting Adventure with Hexie Haven Adventure: the Perfect Blend of Tradition + Innovation!
Bonjour, dear fellow quilters and adventurers! 🗼✨ Ready for the Hexie Haven Adventure?
Today, we’re taking you on an exciting journey into the heart of English Paper Piecing (EPP) like you’ve never experienced before. Buckle up as we introduce you to the marvelous world of the Hexie Haven Adventure Bag Kit and Pattern – your passport to a quilting adventure filled with creativity, innovation, and a touch of French charm. 🧵🌟
🎒 The Essentials: Hexie Haven Adventure Bag Kit 🛍️
First stop on our adventure is the Hexie Haven Adventure Bag Kit, where tradition meets modern convenience. Picture yourself strolling down the charming streets of Paris, taking in the sights and sounds. With this kit in hand, you’re equipped to craft a bag that’s as unique as the city itself. 🌆👜
Inside the kit, you’ll find:
Hexie Haven Adventure Bag Pattern: Your blueprint for a quilted masterpiece, crafted by our small EPP business. This PDF pattern seamlessly combines tradition with modern convenience, offering you a delightful project to embark on.
Essex Linen Fabric: Our high-quality Essex linen fabric ensures both durability and style in your finished creation. It’s the perfect canvas for your quilting adventure.
Strap with Neon Accent: Elevate your bag’s design with a cotton webbing strap handle complemented by a vibrant neon pink nylon strap accent. A touch of neon flair that adds that je ne sais quoi! 🌸🎀
Hexiform Leave-in EPP Hexies and Diamonds: Ah, Hexiform, our revolutionary leave-in EPP material! It’s your EPP template and interfacing, all in one. Say au revoir to the laborious task of removing paper templates – Hexiform stays in, saving you precious crafting time. 🕒
Large Yo-Yo Maker: Elevate your quilting with ease using our included large yo-yo maker, allowing you to create eye-catching yo-yo embellishments effortlessly.
🌟 The Hexie Haven Experience 🌈
Now, imagine yourself immersed in the art of English Paper Piecing, but with a modern twist. Our Hexie Haven Adventure Bag Kit ensures you can focus on the joy of quilting, thanks to the time-saving Hexiform. No more wrestling with paper templates – it’s all about stitching and creating. 🪡🎨
🇫🇷 Petit Pan Pretties – The Colors of Paris 🇫🇷
For that extra touch of French charm, consider adding our Petit Pan Pretties to your adventure. These charming 5″ charm squares come in 18 vibrant and neon colors, perfect for adding a pop of color to your project. 🌈🗼
Ready to Embark on Your Hexie Haven Adventure? 🚀
Our Hexie Haven Adventure Kit will be delivered right to your doorstep, granting you instant access to the downloadable PDF pattern. This kit is perfect for quilters with basic EPP knowledge, whether you’re a seasoned enthusiast or already well-versed in the art. Join us in creating a bag that marries tradition with a refreshing modern twist. 🪡✨
So, are you ready to embark on your quilting adventure, dear friends? The Hexie Haven experience awaits, and we can’t wait to see the incredible projects you’ll create with these new additions. Grab your kit, pattern, and some Petit Pan Pretties, and let’s stitch up some fun together! 🧵🎒
Before there were Hexiform Butterflies, there were the dreary days of winter. During the early winter of 2022, Kim came across a vintage quilt that immediately had her thinking of spring! She was up in Centre County, Pennsylvania (home of State College and Penn State University) visiting family. After saying “not it” to her husband, she grabbed grandmother and pointed her Prius towards one of her favorite antique malls where she came across a lavender vintage quilt filled with adorable appliquéd butterflies scattered across it. Her husband got to entertain the kids for the next few hours.
kaleidoscope noun
ka·lei·do·scope
1: an instrument containing loose bits of colored material (such as glass or plastic) between two flat plates and two plane mirrors so placed that changes of position of the bits of material are reflected in an endless variety of patterns
Did you know a group of butterflies is referred to a kaleidoscope of butterflies?
Let’s DO This!
Totally smitten with the (at first apparent) simplicity of the vintage butterflies, we decided to try making some ourselves! We tried a couple of different methods including needle turn applique and freezer paper with starch. See below.
Ultimately we decided to go with the DUH solution (at least for us!) That solution was to just use Hexiform leave-in EPP to make Hexiform Butterflies.
Hexiform Butterflies
If you take a close look at the butterflies, there are no fewer than 6 tight concave curves. Those are the “inside curves” near the butterfly’s body and between wing sections (where the paintbrush is pointing in the picture above.) To get fabric to fold over concave curves properly, you have to put small snips into the seam allowance. But you risk the snips being seen from the front. For the needle turn and freezer paper / starch ideas, we just couldn’t get it to work effectively.
Pretty soon you’ll want to make allllll the Hexiform butterflies! What you do with them is up to you! Will you scatter them in groups of 5, like the original maker? We will be arranging them differently. Make sure you are following us on Instagram ( @brimfieldawakening ) so you can see what we do!
When you eventually applique them to your background square, you will need some Roxanne Glue Baste It. This applique glue is amazing and will ensure your butterflies won’t shift over the long haul while you machine or hand applique them to the background squares. It is safe for your fabric and will wash out. The best part is that it has a hummingbird applicator – a nice long needle so as to allow you to place the tiniest drops of glue to your project. Below is a shopping list of supplies you can click on if you decide to give this a go!
If you use this template, please share your creation with us on Instagram or within our FaceBook private group: The Brimfield Bee. We would love to see what you make. Please use the hashtag #brimfieldawakening and let your friends know they can get this template for free by signing up for our newsletter. Thank you!
Brimfield Beginnings Quilt Sampler by Brimfield Awakening Danyella Nava (@madesewmodern on Instagram) did the custom ghost quilting for us and we love it!
Hello! After several requests, we have put together a quick tutorial on how to assemble the quilt top for the Brimfield Beginnings Quilt which finishes roughly 46″ square.
Fabric for Blocks: 20 Jelly Roll Strips or assorted scraps
Backing: 2 yards
Binding: 1/2 yard
Notions: Glue Pen (we use Sewline), Applique Glue (we use Roxanne’s Glue Baste It), Needle (Milliner’s Size 10) Thread (we use Wonderfil Specialty Threads DecoBob 80 weight for the EPP and Invisifil 100 weight for the applique)
The Brimfield Beginnings Quilt Kit contains the following: Brimfield Beginnings Starter Pack for each block (Mayflower, Meera, and Soleil) plus a bumper paper pack of papers needed to make the quilt. Each starter pack contains papers for 4 blocks, durable window acrylic template(s) which you can use to trace additional papers, and an instructional card for block assembly. This quilt uses the following amounts of each Beginnings block: (9) Mayflower Blocks, (7) Soleil Blocks and (5) Meera Blocks.
Please note that if you already own the 3 Brimfield Beginnings Starter packs, then you actually have everything you need to make this quilt. The only caveat is that you will have to trace additional papers using your window acrylic templates. If you do not wish to trace your own papers, we carry a set of “bumper” papers. These bumper papers will bridge the gap between the 12 blocks included between the 3 starter kits and what is needed to complete the quilt. Alternatively, if you own the Brimfield Beginnings Bulk Paper Packs (Mayflower Bulk, Meera Bulk + Soleil Bulk), you have more than enough blocks to complete this quilt.
Preparing the Background
From your background fabric cut:
(21) 8″ squares
(15) 7.5″ squares
(4) border strips (2 strips 2.5″ x 42″ and 2 strips 2.5″ x 48″)
Applique Your Epp
The Brimfield Beginnings Kits come with instructional cards which covers how to prep your background squares for the applique and how to use the Roxanne’s Glue to glue baste the EPP to the background squares. Follow those instructions and do that to the (21) 8″ background squares and EPP blocks that you stitched (9 Mayflower, 7 Soleil + 5 Meera.) Applique by machine or by hand and then trim your blocks down to 7.5″ squares. You will have 21 squares with EPP and 15 blank squares.
Sew 2 border strips (2.5” x 42”) on opposite sides of the quilt top. Then, sew the other border strips on and your top is complete!
Baste and quilt as desired. We designed this quilt to have the blocks “ghost quilted” on the blank squares. You can do this too using your acrylics and papers as a guide. Congratulations on making your Brimfield Beginnings Quilt – you are no longer a beginner!!
Please share your progress with us! We would love to have you follow along with us on Instagram (we are @brimfieldawakening ) and we hope you’ll join our private Facebook group called The Brimfield Bee. This is where you can share any of your Brimfield Awakening makes within a safe community of other online stitchers also making our patterns from around the world! Please use the hashtags #BrimfieldBeginnings + #BrimfieldAwakening so we can see what you make 🙂
Wonderfil Specialty Thread DecoBob 80 weight and Invisifil 100 weight
Milliners Needles size 10
Scissors, iron, Ironing Board, Spray Starch
Kona Colors
Ruby (tulip)
Lipstick (petal)
Cardinal (stem)
Punch (stem)
Clover (Green Leaf )
Kelly Green (Green Leaf)
Corn Yellow (Center)
Daffodil (Center)
If you purchased our Winter Blooms Kit with the Kona fabric, “Rich Red” was substituted for “Ruby” in the tulip pieces.
Please read through this online tutorial before starting anything.
Use the Brimfield Meadows Pattern Instructional Booklet as your guide to doing the English Paper Piecing (EPP) for these blocks. This online tutorial will not cover the EPP (that is what the pattern is for 🙂
The Winter Blooms blocks are simply our Brimfield Meadows blocks minus most of the arc pieces. Below is a picture of our Brimfield Meadows block. Can you see how the Winter Blooms Block was created from it?
Brimfield Meadows by Brimfield AwakeningWithout most of the “arc” pieces, our Brimfield Meadows block becomes a really pretty stand-alone block that we thought looked like a poinsettia. We asked folks following us on Instagram to name it and they voted on “Winter Blooms”.
Getting Started
Using the Brimfield Meadows Pattern instructional booklet as your guide, stitch together 8 Brimfield Meadows blocks MINUS the following pieces from the “arc” sections of the block: C, D2 and D3. We like to use Wonderfil Specialty Threads DecoBob 80 weight for our hand stitching EPP. Do NOT prepare any of the background squares from the pattern; Winter Blooms uses different background squares. Per the Brimfield Meadows instructions, pop the papers out of your newly completed Winter Blooms blocks, press and starch them well. Tuck any tails and press towards the inside of your EPP blocks and set aside.
Preparing the Background
Cut (4) 25″ squares from your background fabric and, using a quarter inch seam allowance, stitch them together to make a 49.5″ square.
Winter Blooms EPP Placement on Background Fabric
Take one Winter Blooms Block and on the back apply small dots of Roxanne’s Glue to the outer edge seam allowance. The long applicator syringe of the Roxanne’s Glue makes this easy.
Align your Winter Blooms block on the top vertical seam (in the 12 o’clock position) of your background fabric so that the tulip/petal piece points match and line up with the seam. The inward facing tulip/petal tip should be 9.5″ away from the center of the background fabric.
The glue is temporary and if you have to adjust you can. Refer to the diagram below.
Very carefully take the entire background fabric with the one Winter Blooms block on it to the iron and heat set it. Be careful not to let it move in the process.
Continue doing this to the rest of the blocks along the vertical and horizontal seams of the background fabric (3, 6 + 9 o’clock positions.) You might find it easier to glue them all first and let them air dry before heat setting them.
The blocks that fill in the spaces between the “3,6, 9 + 12 o’clock” blocks that line up along the seams are placed down at a 45 ° angle compared to the two surrounding blocks. Just like the blocks lined up along the background seams, these blocks’ inward pointing petal/tulip piece tip should be 9.5″ away from the center of the quilt.
Applique Your Winter Blooms
The Roxanne’s Glue does a nice job holding the blocks into place after they have been heat set. You can machine or hand applique the blocks down. We like to use Wonderfil Specialty Invisifil thread for the job. It is a 100 weight cottonized polyester thread. It is super fine but rather strong. Best of all, the thread disappears into your fabric. If you are machine appliquéing, we recommend doing a very small zigzag stitch or a blind hem stitch.
Now it is time to quilt as desired and bind! The negative space that develops inside this quilt is awesome! Do you see a giant snowflake? Kim personally sees Christmas cookies 🙂 There is always a food connection! The Winter Blooms themselves reminded us of poinsettias. We almost called this quilt “Poinsettia Wreath” or “Poinsettia Crown.” Whatever you think of it, we hope you love it and it brings you lots of joy this holiday season. Please share your creations with us on Instagram (we’re @brimfieldawakening) or consider joining our private Facebook Group, The Brimfield Bee, where you can post all of your Brimfield Awakening projects. These hashtags help us find your work: #WinterBlooms #BrimfieldAwakening
Our Winter Blooms Quilt was custom long armed by Danyella Nava (@madesewmodern on Instagram) Look for the hidden snowflakes within the quilting. She is based in New Mexico and always hits it out of the park. Thank you Danyella! Made Sew Modern
We carry two Celestial Blooms Kits. One is just the EPP papers needed to make this quilt. The other is bigger and contains all the EPP papers, Acrylic Templates and two EPP patterns that goes over the EPP blocks used in making this quilt. You can purchase the EPP Papers Kit here and the Complete Kit here.
If you are a quilt shop owner, and would like to kit the Celestial Blooms quilt, please reach out to us and we’ll set you up.
This is the Celestial Blooms quilt from Brimfield Awakening. Using Tula Pink’s HomeMade fabric collection, this EPP quilt features 8 Brimfield Blooming Stars blocks surrounding one Brimfield Block in the center. The Brimfield Block (minus the orange peels) features Tula’s Pedal to the Metal sewing machine fabric. The custom quilting is by Danyella Nava @Madesewmodern
This tutorial will cover how to assemble the quilt top for the Celestial Blooms Quilt. The Celestial Blooms kit includes 2 EPP patterns – Brimfield Blooming Star and Brimfield Block. Those pattern instructional booklets will take you through the process of doing the EPP for the blocks included for this quilt top. Please refer to those instructions for completing the individual EPP blocks up to the part of popping the papers out from the completed blocks. You do not have to prepare the background squares from those instructions. Below are detailed pictures of each quilt block to help you plan your fussy cutting if you plan on making your quilt exactly as we did. The fabric requirements above are what we used for our fussy cutting purposes. If you “do your own thing” (and we hope you do!) you will find that you may have way more fabric left over, or in some cases, not enough fabric for what you want to do. We strongly encourage you to use acrylic templates to audition different motifs within the fabric and plan ahead what you will need before tracing and cutting.
This is the first Blooming Star block that is in the “12 o’clock” position on the Celestial Blooms quilt. The fabrics used in this block are Pins & Needles (noon), Cut Once (noon), Tools of the Trade (noon) and Pedal to the Metal (noon)This Brimfield Blooming Star block is featured in the top right corner of the Celestial Blooms quilt. The Tula Pink HomeMade fabric used in this block is: Pins & Needles (Night), Tools of the Trade (Night), Cut Once (Night), and Measure Twice (Night)Against the white background of the blog post, this one is difficult to see, but the creamy “Busy Fingers” fabric used on the outer points of the Brimfield Blooming Star block looks stunning against the navy background fabric (see first picture in this blog.) The Tula Pink HomeMade fabric used in this Blooming Star block (that goes in the 3 o’clock position on the quilt) is: Busy Fingers (Morning), Getting Snippy (Brunch) and Getting Snippy (morning)Getting Snippy (night) takes over the center portion of this fussy cut Brimfield Blooming Star block using the Tula Pink HomeMade fabric. Four of the ice cream cone complete pieces are from Measure Twice (Noon) and the other ice cream “cone” pieces are in Seed Stitch (Night). The “scoops” of those blocks are in the Measure Twice fabric in the Night color way.This Brimfield Blooming Star block lives at the 6 o’clock position in the Celestial Blooms quilt and uses only 2 prints from the Tula Pink HomeMade fabric collection. Getting Snippy (noon) and Pins & Needles (Night)Tools of the Trade (Morning) make up the cute snips portion of Tula Pink’s HomeMade fabric collection in this Brimfield Blooming Star Block. Other fabrics used are: Pedal to the Metal (Morning) and Cut Once (Morning)This Blooming Star block is in the 9 o’clock position on the quilt. This ended up being one of my favorite blocks from the Celestial Blooms quilt. I love the fussy cutting and the pattern achieved overall by using only one fabric in two color ways. Pedal to the medal (Noon) and Pedal to the Metal (Night). Those loops created within the pinwheel pieces are actually sewing machine cords! Tula Pink HomeMade is a dream to fussy cut 🙂Measure Twice (Morning) is loads of fun to fussy cut! In this round Brimfield Blooming Star block, it acts like a stripe and draws the eye out in concentric circles from the center of the block. The Pins & Needles (Night) is the perfect resting spot for the eyes.Initially this was the layout for the final, center, Brimfield Block. I ended up swapping out 4 of the spools on the “small house” pieces for some needle and thread “loops” from a different part of the fabric. See the picture of the final quilted block below. The Tula Pink HomeMade fabrics and color ways used in this block are: Pedal to the Metal (Morning), Getting Snippy (Noon), Measure Twice (Night), Busy Fingers (Night) and Getting Snippy (Night)And here is how the center Brimfield Block turned out. You can compare the pink small house pieces to the original idea in the picture above. Don’t you just love the quilting by Danyella Nava @madesewmodern ?
Create 8 Blooming Star and 1 Brimfield Blocks
The papers should be removed and the blocks should be starched and pressed so that the “dog ears” are pressed towards the insides of the EPP. Remember to use the Brimfield Blooming Star and Brimfield Block pattern instructional booklets to walk you through the EPP. Also remember that in this particular quilt, we did not use any orange peels in the Brimfield Block. Set aside.
Piece the Background
Piece (4) 26″ squares together from the background fabric (Seed Stitch in the Noon color way) using a quarter inch seam allowance. Use the diagram below as a cutting guide.
Applique the EPP to the Background
Using the “+” from the seams of the background fabric as a guide and working clockwise around the fabric, apply small dots of Roxanne Glue to the back of one of your Brimfield Blooming Star blocks. The long tip of the Roxanne glue applicator makes this easy to make small precise dots around the outside perimeter of the seam allowance as well as the seam allowance of the inside “petal” cutouts of the block. Place this first block centered in the 12 o’clock position along the top vertical seam of the background fabric. Place it so that the inside pointing tip of the star – the one pointing towards the center of the background fabric – measures 9.25″ from the center. Carefully take this over to your hot iron and heat set the block. Affix 3 more Blooming Stars the same way, aligning so that the inside pointing tips end up 9.25″ away from the center of the quilt and along one of the main background seams. Place the remaining 4 blocks onto the background of the quilt in between the other blocks. We found it useful to press diagonal creases into each of the 4 quadrants to make a guide. Measure 12″(you might have to eyeball this – if any of your other blocks are “off” you might have to hedge this distance closer to 11.75″. Do what looks good!) from the center of the quilt top to an inside pointing tip of the Blooming Star. Glue and heat set the remaining blocks.
Machine or hand applique the blocks into place. We get asked all the time what to do about the dog ears. We recommend keeping them and folding them under as best you can. Snipping them is what you’ll want to do, but it is best to trim them down only a little and fold them under. This will prevent fraying at the edges of your applique.
Center the Brimfield Block
Once all your Blooming Stars are appliquéd into place, it is time to center your Brimfield Block. Using the “tall house” tips as your guide, align them along the seams from your background fabric. Use the graphic below as a guide.
Just like with the Blooming Star blocks, apply dots of applique glue to the outside edges of your house tips and heat set the Brimfield Block to the background. Applique into place. Once all the blocks have been appliquéd, very carefully cut away the background fabric from underneath the EPP sections. Be careful not to poke your scissors into the front of the EPP.
You may wish to add borders. Our sample does not have borders. Now it is time to quilt and bind! If you wish to create larger background squares, this does not affect the distance from the center with which you measure your applique. It remains the same. You can make the distance away from the center greater if you want, just be sure to add proportionately to the Blooming Stars along the diagonal creases as well.
We used the 108″ Measure Twice fabric for the backing and it couldn’t have been easier.
We hope you love making this quilt. Please tag us on Instagram with your makes! We are @brimfieldawakening Also use the hashtags #celestialblooms + #brimfieldawakening
ABOUT
We are Kim + Nisha. There's a certain smell that comes with time, walking the acreage of Brimfield. There's nothing better than finding a tent with that smell - When it hits our noses, we know we're about to hit quilty gold. Start your EPP journey with us! We can't wait to stitch with you.
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