It's all about maths

Time for a little maths lesson.  Do you love English paper piecing but ready to move on from just hexies..

We have lots of die cut EPP Iron-on shapes being added to our inventory with our next order coming soon. So I thought it was time to have a little lesson on how they work together.

English Paper piecing is basically using paper templates (we use our Applique paper for our unique easyepp method) and folding fabric pieces over the paper to make perfect shapes.

Generally (although not always) the shapes tessellate to make a solid piece. This means that the shapes fit together perfectly with no gaps in between.

For this to work however, they either need to be all the exact same shape with an equal amount of sides or shapes in the same angle and size group.

So if you can remember back to school here is the basics of maths:

We’ll start with the simple hexagon. It has six sides. A full circle is 360degrees = so divide that by 6 and it gives us 60 degrees.

So shapes that will tessellate with a hexagon generally all need to be based on 60 degree angles (or could be 30, 90, 120 degrees).

These include:

And all of their derivates (as in you can chop a hexagon up into many smaller shapes.)

Just look at all the ways you can cut a hexie apart and put it back together again!

Of course you need to choose the measurement to match also (we’ll talk more about how to measure epp shapes in another post)

You can always start with any shape, cut it apart and know that it should go back together again, but what if you want to use different starter shapes and design a new motif or block with them?

Well just look at those angles and see if they might work together.

For example a jewel shape will work with the 60 degree hexie shapes.

But what about other angles you may ask? well back to maths and your 360 degree circle. What else can it be divided into?

An Octagon is a 45degree shape (8 sides 360/8=45)

and therefore works well with honeycombs and 90 degree squares.

and 45 degree diamonds

A pentagon is not so pretty to use – on its own it does not tessellate (ie: there are gaps)

but combine it with 72 or 36  degree diamonds and it can work.

See if you can work out the maths in these In The Round blocks below:

If you’d love to learn more about English Paper piecing and our unique Easy EPP method checkout our tutorials

here.

Or you may wish to take our Scrappity Doo Dah 26 part EPP program.

That's enough for one maths lesson – happy epp’ing

Hugs, Helen