Modern Handcraft Hexie Pillow for Simon

Simon is getting ready to start middle school in the fall. They say that the days are long and the years are short when you’re raising children and I find that to be very true. (Here’s my post announcing I was pregnant with Simon in the fall of 2005.)

I told my kids that when they transition from elementary school to middle school, we can freshen up their rooms to make the decor more grown-up. A new comforter, new rug like that tapis fille, a lamp, and some posters mean a lot when you’re 12 and working to define who you are and who you want to become.

The summer before Roxanne began 6th grade, I made her a pillow for her bed to match her new aqua and gray color scheme. That one was EPP and we designed it together on graph paper. While I was working on it, I promised to make Simon a pillow when his time came.

While at QuiltCon this past February I ran into Nicole from Modern Handcraft. A few months earlier I’d interviewed Nicole for an article I wrote about her in Modern Patchwork magazine and, at that time, she was still working as a flight attendant while designing quilts and hadn’t yet released any patterns. She’d developed a signature technique of appliqueing paper pieced hexies and won multiple awards for her quilts, but was hesitant to release a pattern. The hesitation was rooted in the fact that she’d created a free tutorial for the technique some years prior and posted it on her blog. She now regretted giving the instructions away for free and felt that in doing so she’d prevented herself from ever creating a pattern with it.

We talked it over and I encouraged her to create a pattern anyway. A pattern is a whole project, beautifully photographed and described. It’s different from a quickly made online tutorial. A few months later Nicole took the plunge and released the Hexie Pillow, her first pattern (she now has several others). When I saw her she handed me one and I was thrilled. I knew that this would make a perfect pillow for Simon.

Me and Simon a few weeks ago when we dropped him off at camp.

Simon is at sleepaway camp for a month. Right before he left we went on Hawthorne Threads together and he chose these red and black fabrics to match his room. He gets back on Sunday and this pillow will be waiting for him on his bed. I’m sure he’ll be excited, but not as excited as he’ll be for the other new thing promised before the start of middle school: a phone! It’s kinda hard to compete with a phone (even a flip phone), but I’m hoping a hexie pillow will at least earn me a hug.

And some exciting news. Nicole is generously offering my readers a 25% discount on the PDF of the Hexie Pillow pattern. Use the code NAPS to get yourself a copy. It’s a beautiful pattern that’s easy to follow, fun to sew, and produces great results. Worth every penny.