I was actually quite pleased with how they were turning out, but once I'd sewn them all together, I could see that seeing the seam allowances through a white fabric would drive me potty when it was hung on the wall (in a way that it wouldn't if it was a quilt, where I'd expect to see these) and my husband said he'd feel the same too. And it didn't work to attempt to press all the seam allowances toward the darker fabrics in this case, which was my first thought in solving this problem. It's difficult to see in a photograph, but the top photo of the two that follow shows the diamonds machine pieced and the bottom photograph shows exactly the same pattern pieces sewn together using the English paper piecing method. To go on the wall, the pieces in the second photo look far crisper to me.
And just for the more geeky amongst you, you might like to see the contrast in a close up. The top photo is machine sewn, the lower one English paper pieced:
The thing that I found the most challenging about making this was to try and reign myself in when it came to introducing new fabric prints for each round of hexagons. I trialled out so many different grey and mustard prints, but my husband kept steering me back to the fact that it actually just looked better when I allowed more repetition.
I'll hopefully show you the finished thing later in the week. While I don't intend to continue making things twice in future, I actually quite enjoyed seeing the same thing made up in two different ways on this occasion, so I have decided not to eat my own head for the time being.
Florence x
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