Step 4: Basting

If you do enough searching online, you will find more fabric basting tutorials than you know what to do with.  And they all seem a little bit different. And now I'm going to add to it with my little tutorial on basting hexagons for English Paper Piecing. I'm only partially sorry.
The point here is to attach a piece of fabric to a piece of paper of a set size and shape quickly so that you can do it over and over again to make a pile of hexagons that are all the same size and shape.  Then you attach the hexagons together, take out the paper, and, you know, make a quilt.  Here is what I have come up with for my basting process after making a dozen dozen hexagons.

Step 1: Pin a paper hexagon to a piece of fabric.

I am using 1.25" hexagons and 3" squares of fabric. That leaves a quarter-inch seam allowance at the two tips closest to the edge of the fabric.

Step 2: Tie a knot in your thread, which should be a very bright, contrasting color so that you can see it later to cut it out. Fold one edge of the fabric over the paper and go through the fabric AND the paper near the bottom corner of your folded fabric.

The pin makes things a bit awkward, so I always start near it, but on the right side. That way, as I go counter clockwise around the hexagon, I will avoid the pin for as long as possible.

Step 3. Fold the fabric again over the next edge of the hexagon.  I have started using the needle to make a clean crease. Ta da!

Step 4: Pass the needle back through the fabric at the next corner.  Your thread should now go nearly the length of one side of the hexagon and now be back on the side of the fabric with the paper. Make sure that there are no snags.

Step 5: Continue around the entire circumference of the hexagon. If you do one stitch per side, you will now have 3 large stitches per side and your needle will come out on the "right" side of the fabric.  As I pull the needle out the last time, I pass it under the first stitch and then back through the loop for a quick knot. Like so:

Step 6: Tighten the knot, snip the thread, and viola! A hexagon!

Now, repeat about a thousand times and then make a quilt.