Hexagon quilt question
 

I am working on my first hexagon quilt and really loving it. My question is about removing the paper pieces. I have several rows sewn together and am wondering when should I remove the papers? The size of papers I am using are 1 1/2 inches.

I remove mine when all sides of the hexagon are attached to another one. If I am working on a small project and do not need to reuse the hexies then I take them out all at once.

HEXIE TIP - When I want to reuse the paper insert I give them a squirt with my water bottle and press with a not iron. It get then to that stiff point again. I usually can use the same paper piece 3 -4 times.

I was very very concerned about removing my papers before the whole quilt was assembled. But based on advice from this quilt after the first two rows of flowers were sewn together I started removing papers. Always leave one row of papers where you will be attaching additional hexigons. The hexi's held their shape just fine without the papers and having the fabric flexible as the quilt got larger made adding to it much easier.

So in short - remove all the papers except on the edge where you will be attaching additional flowers or hexis.

I have a question too .. when you iron the freezer paper to the hexagon, does the shiney side iron against the back of the fabric? When I tried it this way I had problems getting the seams to stay ironed down. Thanks

KSellers......I lay the dull side of the freezer paper down on the wrong side of the fabric and turn the 1/4" edges over to the shiny side and iron them down. I have been able to use the same 'templates' several times. I'm not about to baste all those hexagons and this really works well!

Thanks for the help! I was worried that my hexies would loose their shape when I took out the papers. And thanks for the freezer paper tip! I will try it on my next hexagon quilt. This one is a grandmother's flower garden made with 1930's reproduction fabrics.

GemState -- thanks so much for the answer! I thought that might be the solution, but I was discouraged and put it away to work on another quilt. I'll get it back out soon.

Wish I could help but I don't use paper when piecing mine. Hope you get the answers you need.

I bought my hexagons from a paper piecing company. They were cheap and I could use each one 6-8 times without ironing them.
http://www.paperpieces.com is the company from whom I got them.
She also has lots of EPP quilt projects available and is a pleasure to deal with.

To make a Grandmother's Flower Garden is on my bucket list. Here is a website I found for pastic templates that you can use many many times. 50 0r 60 templates for $20.00. This is the way I will go with templates.

http://quiltpati.tripod.com/