So once you have chosen fabric, cut and basted your pieces how do you sew them together?
This is a guided tutorial, with pictures, to teach you one way to sew the block together. Keep in mind with EPP many times there is no "right" method of sewing shapes together. In fact ,as Sara and Laura were discussing this post, they realized they had found different steps to get to the same end!
This is Laura's method, but we will discuss alternate ways to sew each set together and you can experiment and ultimately find what suits you best.
Start with the 6 jewel shapes in the center.
Sew two together, then sew a third jewel onto that and put it aside.
Sew the next three in the same way so you have two sets of 3 jewels.
Sew the two side together along the straight edge, prioritizing alignment in the middle.
Your center is complete!
Laura starts the next round by sewing a full hexagon in, then a half hexagon next to it on top of the crown of the jewel shape and the first hexi.
Continue this pattern until you work your way around the entire block
Take a breather and admire how good your block looks! One more round to go!
The third round starts with sewing a large half hexi to one side of the block.
Then sew the diamonds to the remaining large half hexis (there should be 5) . Remember to sew them all on the same side of the half hexi. On the last half hexi, sew a diamond on both sides so you will have sets that look like this..
This creates a nice long seams as you sew on your last row.
Save the half hexi with the two diamonds to sew on for last, and....
...you are done! Congratulations!
Sara had been taking a somewhat different approach. In the second round she makes sets with the hexagon and half hexagon, then sews each set to the center. In the third round, she individually sews each half hexi in place, all the way around. Once they are all on, she adds a diamond in between them, working around the piece. This being said, she tried Laura's method for the final round when she was making her last block, and she liked it!
We encourage you to try different methods until you find one that works for you - there is no right or wrong, there are no quilt police and no one is judging !