basted.

Bam. A lovely stack of basted hexagons for my piecing pleasure. 

I just started working on my block for the last month of the Get Your Hex On bee. The queen bee this month chose Lucky Penny fabric which has a wonderful combination of teal, mossy green, and fuchsia.  I love these colors!

The hexagons are nice and big, which counterintuitively makes them really fast for me to work on. I like the bigger pieces because the blocks grow so fast! There is such motivation to add 'just one more' piece to the project so despite the extra length for stitches I end up spending more time stitching. 

The instructions for this suggested using an alternative basting method that did not include stitching through the paper templates. I had to look up how exactly this worked; basically when the corners are folded over you take a backstitch over the fold to tack it down as you baste around. Upon reading this, I was totally unconvinced it would be sturdy enough to hold. I was wrong. Using coated hand quilting thread, the thread has enough 'stick' to keep everything nice and together as I stitch. I'm not sure this method would be as successful with smaller pieces without pressing, but I didn't find pressing necessary here. Yet another thing bees are good for… I learned something!