Hand Piecing!

I am pretty sure all of us have something that we say we will NEVER EVER DO!
For me there are (were) three.
1. Hand Applique, 2, Hand Piecing 3. Hand quilting
As you see there is a theme there LOL Yep, I couldn't imagine why I would want to abandon my machine that was able to do all of those things just faster and to my thoughts, easier, right?
It's time to start eating my words and I hope they are low carb LOL

First of all I was a lucky winner at the Inklingo Blog giveaway for a darling kit with everything I need to make the top of a hexagon flowers place mat or mini runner. Aren't the fabrics wonderful? And this is going to be so much fun! I have to put it on the back burner for now but I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Now for my own adventure into hand piecing. As I have mentioned before I have become part of the Inklingo way of hand piecing. I have a post on the basics so I won't go into all that again but I have finally finished my first hand pieced Lemoyne star using the free Inklingo download.
I will admit that this had been a learning process...I need to match the thread to the fabric and not rely on a neutral when making an 8 point star. I like trimming the points away as I stitch with my scissors rather than try and do them with a rotary cutter. I am still working on finding the "right" needle for me but I am getting closer with a sharp...but I need a smaller one I think.

Here is my block unpressed

And here it is pressed. don' t look too closely and yes I know that I have a stray stitch in the middle but maybe I can find a marker the right color and hide it! LOL

Here is the back before pressing.

I stitched up about 10 or so stars and I will be adding the triangles and squares to them but I know I am going to get better and better. The Lemoyne star isn't the easiest as getting all those points together and staying nice and "pointy" is tougher than I thought but I will persevere. LOL