You cannot iron Brandy's; they will melt. I found it a
bit difficult to get very sharp corners with both these products. For whip
stitching (English paper piecing) they worked fairly well since you can to make
the shape more accurate as you stitch them together. You leave both shapes in
place, only removing them when they are surrounded by other hexagons. Both
products have a hole in the middle of the shape and a stick to 'pop' the
plastic template out after stitching. I wanted to make hexagons to appliqué so
tried the Simple Shapes. I had to remove the shape before appliquéing to a
background fabric. I wasn't happy with the precision of the shapes with this
technique.
My friend Peggy used Paper Pieces to make her hexagon table
runner. In this case she wanted to appliqué a row of hexagons to a background
fabric. She tested several methods to turn the seam allowance to the back of
the hexagons and found thread basting through the paper worked best for this
project. She remembered to leave the knot of the basting on the right side of
the shapes to make it easier to remove the basting.
My other friend Anne is also using Paper Pieces for a hexagon quilt using her
collection of French fabrics. Anne is using English paper piecing and likes to allow
a larger seam allowance around the shapes. She hand bastes the seam allowance,
but not through the paper. She bastes carefully at each corner to make sharp, accurate
corners. Anne leaves the papers in place all around the outside of her quilt,
only removing them when one hexagon is joined to other hexagons on all sides.
This is going to be a spectacular quilt.
