I follow a blogger (Karen at Quilts…etc) who does awesome handwork, EPP as well as applique and hand quilting, and posts daily (!).  She recently started making “tiny” hexagon flowers with 1/2″ hexagons.  She usually works with 1″ hexagons, so that’s a big step down.  But since I started with 1/2″ hexagons and the project I’m working on has 1/4″ squares, which have less area than 1/4″ hexagons, hers don’t seem all that tiny to me.

I started wondering what the actual tiniest WOULD be.  I went to Paper Pieces to see what their smallest hexagon is (3/16″) and decided to try to baste one.  I also did a 1/4″ hexagon, since those seemed to be less of a special order item.  (I didn’t order these, I just printed some out from a graph paper site, since I didn’t want to wait and didn’t need 200 of them–or for them to be cut super-accurately.)

Front and back, with a US penny for scale:

They were actually not as annoying to baste as you might imagine, though if I ever did it again, I’d use a slightly bigger seam allowance on both of them, and a MUCH finer needle.  I might make a single flower of each for fun, to see how the sewing-together goes.

I was curious, so I did some math, and in dollhouse scale (1″:12″), the 3/16″ hexagons would equate to 2.25″ hexagons, which is a reasonable size for a quilt.  The 1/4″ hexagons equate to 3″ hexagons in full scale.  (That math was easier.)  The 3″ hexagons are also still a reasonable size for a quilt showing off big chunks of large-print fabric.

These sizes would make sense for jewelry, like a flower pendant.  That would eliminate the problem of how to keep the work supple with such small seam allowances.  Maybe using a very lightweight fusible interfacing on the back to lock in those seam allowances?  I don’t have enough sewing experience to say for sure, but I think even that would destroy the drape at dollhouse scale.

There might be a 3/16″ dollhouse grandmother’s flower garden (or just totally scrappy) quilt in my future.  Way, way in my future.