Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Hexagon Quilt Block Tutorial

A passion of mine is sewing by hand...when I sew by hand it takes me back to "Little House on the Prairie" days.  Hand sewing is a form of meditation to me...a time to reflect, a time to think, to dream of the future and the past.

I sat down to sew these little cutie hexagons and thought I would share the process with you.  It's not a difficult process just a little more time consuming than I had expected, it took me about 3 hours to put this block together.

25 Hexagons will make one block.
1 Center (yellow)
8 first row (orange)
16 second row (turquoise)







Start with 1" English Paper Hexagons, and 2 1/2" squares of fabric.

Using a hot iron, press edges of fabric to the back side of the paper.





Remove paper.

Using a hot iron, press hexagon on front and back to make it nice and flat.

Using a "Sewline" fabric glue pen, dab glue on the back folds to hold the folded fabric flat.





Repeat above process until all 25 hexagons are prepared. 
Lay hexagons out into a diamond shape.






Sew hexagons together by placing two hexagons right sides together and hand sew with needle and thread.  I used a whip stitch.
Sew hexagons in rows first.  Then sew rows together.  Just a warning: The sewing process does require a lot of knotting off thread and starting again as you sew on each new hexagon.



The back side of your block should look like this photo. After the addition of each hexagon press with hot iron to keep the block nice and flat.
  

This photo is just to show how the rows will look when you add on a new row.  It will not lay straight on the block.  As you are sewing a new row on, you will sew 1" then pivot to sew the next hexagon together.


This is the finished block...isn't it a cutie? 
Have fun and enjoy your hand sewing experience.
If you would like to purchase a kit to make this block contact Greenbaum's Quilt Forest.

Momma Hens Coop

5 comments:

  1. Hi Janae,

    So glad to have found you through Momma Hen's! (I'm link #19 at this week's Whatever Wednesday Party.)

    I'm obsessed with fabrics, too, and hope to start doing some very small-scale quilting this year. Perhaps I should start off with a hexie potholder? :)

    Hexagons are a favorite of mine and I actually recently picked up a Depression-era quilt in immaculate condition that's made completely of hexies. I still need to blog about it, but it was naturally hand-pieced and I marvel over the amount of work that went into making such a lovely quilt.

    So nice to meet you,
    Erin @ Carolina Country Living

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    1. Hi Erin, Each time you blog it pops up in my email and I love seeing what you are up too. Looks like you have lots of fun...Janae'

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  2. thanks for the tutorial , very nice , I haven't caught the hexie bug yet , but you have me thinking about it again!

    ok I love that green fabric that is in the background can you tell me the fabric info on the selvage????
    Kathie

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    1. Hi Kathie, Isn't the green fabric fun?...I'm so sorry but I only have less than a fat quarter of it and it doesn't have any selvage writing on it. I'm guessing it's a civil war print that I bought a very long time ago.

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  3. Hi! I love your tutorial! I've started making hexies for a quilt, and am planning on a diamond pattern similar to this one. I would love it if you have a post/tutorial to share on how you assemble the individual blocks/diamonds? Thanks!
    ashley.calder@gmail.com

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