More about Hexagons

I talked about hexagons earlier this month and showed you my quilt top and a tool to cut hexagons. This time I want to show you some other ways to make hexagons.

First two are plastic hexagon shapes. Brandy's are Mylar® and Simple Shapes by June Tailor are thicker plastic. A nice feature of both is that they are reusable. The instructions for both types are the same. You cut a fabric hexagon, adding a 1/4" seam allowance all around. Then sew a gathering stitch around the shape by hand, draw up the gathers around the plastic shape and secure your line of gathering stitches. The main difference between the two products: you can iron the Simple Shapes. 

You cannot iron Brandy's; they will melt. I found it a bit difficult to get very sharp corners with both these products. For whip stitching (English paper piecing) they worked fairly well since you can to make the shape more accurate as you stitch them together. You leave both shapes in place, only removing them when they are surrounded by other hexagons. Both products have a hole in the middle of the shape and a stick to 'pop' the plastic template out after stitching. I wanted to make hexagons to appliqué so tried the Simple Shapes. I had to remove the shape before appliquéing to a background fabric. I wasn't happy with the precision of the shapes with this technique.

  

My friend Peggy used Paper Pieces to make her hexagon table runner. In this case she wanted to appliqué a row of hexagons to a background fabric. She tested several methods to turn the seam allowance to the back of the hexagons and found thread basting through the paper worked best for this project. She remembered to leave the knot of the basting on the right side of the shapes to make it easier to remove the basting.

My other friend Anne is also using Paper Pieces for a hexagon quilt using her collection of French fabrics. Anne is using English paper piecing and likes to allow a larger seam allowance around the shapes. She hand bastes the seam allowance, but not through the paper. She bastes carefully at each corner to make sharp, accurate corners. Anne leaves the papers in place all around the outside of her quilt, only removing them when one hexagon is joined to other hexagons on all sides. This is going to be a spectacular quilt.

Hexagons - Quick Tips and a Tool

Have you noticed the hexagon craze? They are everywhere; in magazines, books and lots of patterns. Most of these quilts are not the 'Grandmother's Flower Garden' designs that were popular in the 1930's. I wanted to make one of these newer styles and wanted to hand piece my quilt. I found a great pattern in Malka Dubrawsky's book Fresh Quilting and decided to use it as the basis for my quilt.

 

There are two shapes needed in additional to the hexagon so the quilt will have straight edges. I made the three templates included in the book and gathered a set of modern fabrics. I removed the seam allowances from my templates and then traced each shape on the back of my fabrics using the Sewline marker. When I cut out the fabric, I added the quarter inch seam allowance using a quilting ruler and my rotary cutter. This gave me the sewing line marked on each piece.  This is very important for someone like me who is fairly new to hand piecing. Marking the seam intersections made it easy to know when to start and stop my seams so the hexagons would be joined accurately.

My quilt top is now finished and I am thinking about the quilting. I would love to hand quilt it but don't know if I want to spend ANOTHER year on this project! 

When I was at International Quilt Festival in Houston last fall, I found a great tool for cutting hexagons. You Hexie Thing, by June Tailor makes cutting hexagons so much easier than templates. This slotted ruler allows you to cut hexagons in nine different sizes. 

 

You start with a strip of fabric; the instructions on the ruler tell you the width to cut your strip for the size hexagon you want to make. You cut in the slots on the tool with your rotary cutter to cut two sides of the hexagon, turn the ruler a quarter turn and cut the two opposite sides. Voila! A perfect hexagon!  That is, if you know what slots to cut in. 

I watched the YouTube video and tested on scrap fabrics first. The video showed me how easy it was!  Perhaps I'll make another hexagon quilt using this tool.   

 

 I definitely like having a portable hand-piecing project. I have another tool that I might try - for a quilt with a different shape. Stay tuned for that one!