'Paper' piece a hexagon quilt

If you want to paper piece a grandma's flower garden quilt but paper piecing just doesn't work for you…

I wanted to use the scraps I inherited from my aunt to make a grandma's garden quilt but I could not work with paper pieces.  First the hexagons have to be cut perfectly.  The paper has to be heavy enough that you can wrap it with fabric but light weight enough to baste through it without the paper tearing.  I have never been able to work all this out.  I have given up after 2 or 3 pieces because I got too frustrated. 

Then I realized that I could 3d print perfect hexagons.  I placed holes around the edge so that I could baste the fabric.  I left the center open to allow you to center motifs if the fabric had one.  I love the ease with which this quilt top is coming together.

The model, as designed, is 1 mm thick.  I have experimented with scaling the z axis down. 

0.4 mm is nice and flexible and therefore is easy to flex slightly while joining quilt pieces.  Most of these broke after being used a few times.  

0.6 mm breaks less often but some have broken while the quilt top was folded between work sessions.

1.0 mm is rather ridged and can be a bit hard to hold onto. 

I prefer 0.6 or 0.8 mm.

The tile measures 2 inches between 2 parallel sides. I personally would not want it any smaller but I suppose it could be scaled down if you were making a doll quilt. You could scale it up a bit but if you are going to scale it up a lot, you probably need additional holes along the edge for an extra basted stitch or 2.

Even with the print bed filled with tiles, this print finishes rather quickly.

I found that I was able to use up bits of leftover filament to print additional tiles.  I also used this as a filament test.  I even used this as a bed leveling test.