comfortstitching

hexa-gone!

Here is a final revelation of hexagonalness followed by the last part of the quilt-a-long. 

 

May I present to you, my wholly finished, entirely machine stitched rainbow of Liberty loveliness and an extravaganza of hexagonal quiltarama.  All stitched and batted and stippled to within an inch of it's life for maximum quilt factor of the very highest standard and not a scrunch of a paper piece in sight.

If I didn't know about those centre seams I really would be clueless to it's construction.  The only worry with making one of these is that you want to make another one straight after.  There is so much potential for playing around with all your dream layouts.  Obviously it screams 'try me in grandmother's flower garden'....

 

 

I'm going to add in the final part of the quilt a long saga here.  All that really remains to be done is to square up your quilted sandwich.  Now my quilt's never ever truly square up so I just try to cut the edges as square and as perpendicular to each other as I can.  To make and attatch your binding, follow my tutorial here.  To sew the binding to the back of the quilt this time however I followed the advice of Liz who suggested several posts ago that I try blind stitching instead of whip stitching as I did in my tutorial.  Well I tried it and I have to say it gives uncomparably better results!   Many many kind thanks to you Liz!

I am so pleased with how this quilt-a-long has gone, there has been such quality and differentiation in the first batch of quilts made and many more are just beginning it's all so exciting!!  I will keep up with the flickr group progression and I hope you will too.  And to all those who have joined into this little circle of quilt-making camaraderie, I would like to say, truly, utterly THANK-YOU!!!!   These flowers are for you!!!

In advance anticipation of the next post I can fearlessly promise that there shall be no more hexagons for the foreseeable future!!!  So please prepare yourselves for the shock as necessary.  Many many many toooooo many thanks to all of you for standing by me as I went into hex-overdrive.    So what shall we do to fill up this fairly large quilting black hole left in the wake of the exiting hexagons???????  Any suggestions, tips, recipes, maps you think I should follow now??? Come on....surprise me!!!!!!!!!

half hexagon quilt a long part 5 - quilting

Firstly I know only a few are at this stage now so don't panic if you haven't started stitching/cutting/bought your fabric!!  These quilt a long instructions will remain here so you will have all the info you need when you get to this bit!!  Last week's instalment was quite a bumper editon so I'm keeping it short and sweet here. 

Once you have your quilt top ready, you will need to iron it.  I strongly advise you iron all your seams open.  This might make you actually hate me but it really will make a H-U-G-E difference to the end result as your hexagons will lie flatter and disguise those giveaway centre seams.  Once ironed you will need to think about the reverse of your quilt.  Many people seem to like constructing the back into a simple design.  I however prefer my back to be just one fabric.  So obviously do as YOU please.  I simply buy twice the length of my quilt in yardage, chop in half lengthways, then stitch together along the lengthy side.  Easy! 

 

To make up your quilt sandwich, place your quilt back out flat on the floor RIGHT SIDE DOWN.  Using duct tape secure down at intervals so it remains flat during pinning.  Place your batting (I always use quilter's dream 100% cotton in select weight) on top of your backing fabric.  Starting from the centre, smooth it out evenly.  Now add your quilt top onto the top (where else!) ensuring you can see at least a few centimetres of batting and backing all the way around your quilt. 

Grab your quilting pins and starting from the centre smooth out your quilt and pin through top, batting and backing approximately every 10 - 20cm.  Peel back your duct tape and remove your quilt from the floor.

Your next decision will be to decide how you want to do the quilting.  Ruth has very kindly come up with these fantastic quilting solutions,

For machine quilting,one andtwo.

For grandmothers flower garden type layout's/scrappy style

For handquilting

 

Free motion quilting/stippling

I chose to free-motion quilt mine and love the end result.    If you are interested in free motion quilting here are some pointers :-

A good sewing machine makes your quilting life so much easier.  My machine is a Pfaff quilt expression 4.0, it is made with the quilter in mind and comes with a sensormatic free motion facility and foot.

You will need to use a darning or free motion foot.

Use good quality thread, this really does make a difference as you are going fast and poor thread will keep getting caught up.

Lower your feed dogs, these are the two lines immediatly under your presser foot that move the fabric for you during sewing, for free-motioning you will be moving your fabric with your hands.

Make sure you needle is sharp, if in doubt replace with a new one.

Increase the tension on your machine, I raise mine to 6 and use stitch length 2.5.

Keep all parts of your quilt that are around your machine loosely bunched up/folded for ease of sewing.  DO NOT let them hang off the edges of your table.

Keep your foot fully pressed down on your pedal but move your fabric with your hands at a slower speed.

Fill as many bobbins as you are able to before starting, you will use many!

Practise practise practise!!  Make up some mini quilt sandwiches using spare fabric and batting and play around on those until you have a good feel of things.

 

This discussion thread is a very useful read.

If you're still unsure how to go about things, this video clip is great.  

If you want to free motion quilt but don't have a sewing machine where you can lower your feed dogs, you might find this discussion thread very interesting!

 

If you have any queries about quilting or stippling or anything else or if you're just feeling chatty or want to talk about what you are making or what the weather is like where you are just ask or tell!!  I only learned to free motion quilt about two months ago!!  So I remember how it feels to try something new!  I hope whatever you are stitching it is going well for you!!!

half hexagon quilt-a-long part four - sewing your quilt top

I have decided to add this instalment today for those of you who wish to sew over the weekend.  As I have said before do not worry if you are not at this stage yet or haven't even started yet, there's no rush!!!!  Today we are starting with stripping!  Hopefully you should now have a few piles of half hexagons all ready to sew.  I use 100% white cotton thread for almost all my stitching.  Before you start, I would suggest you fill up as many bobbins as you can so you don't have to keep stopping while sewing. 

Starting with your first row, take your first two pieces and place them right sides together as shown, so you have the bottom edge of piece one aligned with the top edge of piece two.  As we are sewing diagonal seams, the end points wont be flush but cross a quarter of an inch from the edge. 

I never pin or tack but you can if you find it easier.  Sew your seam, allowing for your quarter inch seam allowance.  Continue by sewing piece number three to the bottom of piece number two and so on.  I normally temporarily remove the paper row label number then re-attatch it once the row is sewn.

 

 

 

You may want to lay out your strips as you go, to check each half hexagon meets it's partner in the next strip!!

 

Once sewn you need to iron your strips, I would recommend you iron your seams open rather than to the side as your hexagons lie much flatter like this. 

 

Now you can start sewing your strips together.  Line up the first two rows as shown so that the vertical edges are aligned and the points are flush then sew with a quarter inch seam allowance.

 

From time to time as you sew you'll notice that your points wont be exactly flush.  To remedy this I usually pull the top/bottom strip down gently as I sew so that the points are aligned. 

In this instance the top strip was pulled down. 

 

Sew all your strips in this way until.........

 

Hooray!!!  your quilt top is done.

I hope you are finding the instruction here useful and easy to understand!!  I am not trained in any technical way and learned to quilt from books and just giving it a go!  I hope your quilt's are coming along nicely and you are enjoying participaiting in this quilt-a-long.  Can't wait to see how you are all getting along.

Have yourselves a lovely weekend whatever you do!!!!!!!  See you all next week!

half hexagon quilt-a-long part 3 - placing

Now that you have hundreds of half hexagons all cut out and ready, you'll need to find them a home!!  And what better home can any piece of fabric hope to have than a quilt. 

 

First you'll need to lay out all your hexagons to work out your placement.  This will take a good few hours to do.  My quilt is going to be made up of 36 vertical rows of half hexagons, so that will make 18 full size hexagons across the quilt.  There will be 22 horizontal rows, the top and bottom of these rows are made up of quarter hexagons which are simply half hexagons chopped in half vertically.  See pic. below.

I sew in my living room, so once the girls are safely out of the way at school, I clear a large space of my lovely green living room carpet and start laying out my hexagon jigsaw and fiddle around until I think "THIS! is the half-haxagon quilt of my dreams!!!!!!!!". 

The next part is a bit geeky but worth it as it can save many a patchwork headache in the immediate future of your quilt!!  Get yourself some scrap paper, I like to use the back of the many letters my girls bring home from school.  Cut them into little squares and use to label each vertical row of shapes (see pic). 

Next pile up each vertical row one by one so that you have the top quarter hexagon at the top of the pile and your bottom quarter hexagon at the bottom of the pile.  Pin your row label on top of each row as you go. 

 

Now grab yourself a largish tupperware-type container and some more sheets of scrap paper.  Place each of your piles onto a sheet of paper and fold the paper around it carefully.  I normally start with my last row, in this case row 36. 

Place each row into your tupperware temporary accommodation, so that you end up with your first row at the top of the pile (note in the above pic row 1 is top of the pile on the left hand side).  Finally put your tupperware somewhere safe where it will not be moved or jiggled about, it is crucial that your shapes stay in order until you sew or things can get horribly, muddlesome-ly complicated.

To work out how many pieces you need if you wish to make a different sized quilt to mine -  I have edited part 2 of this quilt a long to include this, see here and scroll down a little!

A teeny word of warning - Do not attempt to lay out your pieces on a very hot day unless you have adequate air-conditioning!!  This is what I did and I ended up unable to open the patio door to let in any air as my pieces started learning how to fly!!!

Now, I need something from you!!!!  I am nowhere near the quilting stage but I have started to think about this already.  I am really very unsure of how I want to quilt this project.  Absolutely any suggestions will be very extremely welcome.........stitch in the ditch?????  vertical lines??? free motion stippling???????  What would work well on hexagons???????  Have a think and please let me know!!

If you wish to quilt-a-long it's not too late to join!  Just leave me a comment below even if you aren't ready to start yet.

If you're quilting along don't forget to join my new flickr group here

Back soon with more patchy procrastination.

half hexagon quilt-a-long part 2 - cutting

Once you have found yourself a friendly little gang of fabrics you're happy to spend a bit of time with, you can get on with cutting out your half hexagons.  Template can be found here but please note this may not print to the correct size!! 

Please flickrmail Ruthdesigns for the correct sized template and she will e-mail it to you.  Remember to include your e-mail address!!!!

I cut out my half hexagon from template plastic and then gave my fabric a nice steamy iron before cutting them up into 2.5" strips.  I use  my template to cut out the shapes like this.

 

To work out how many pieces you need if you wish to make a different sized quilt to mine - Decide on the size in inches you would like your finished quilt to be,

divide the width by 2, this will give you the number of pieces you will need across the width of your quilt.
Divide the length by 7.25, multiply this by 2, add 1, round your answer up to the nearest whole number.  This will give you the number of rows you will need going down your quilt.

Multiply number of pieces across by the number of pieces down, this will give you the total number of pieces you will need.
If all this sounds too complicated just use less pieces, that will give you a smaller quilt!

It took me a good day to cut out all the shapes, I recommend a good film and several cups of tea for sustinance purposes.

 

I got about 48 half hexagons from quarter metre cuts of my Liberty fabrics but what you get will really depend on the width of your fabrics.  Use at least 10 different fabrics though I would recommend more.  Happy chopping!!!!!!!! 

Can't wait to see what fabrics everybody else is using and don't forget you can use the quilt-a-longer links in my sidebar to keep up with everyone else's progress and please do!

 

That's 756!!!!! half hexagon's!

It's not too late to join the quilt-a-long, just let me know in the comments below.

Back tommorow!! with a double dose of nine patch action!!!!!!  Oh yes!!

frilly pillow-talk and half hexagon quilt-a-long part one!

Edited to add: A quick guide to Half hexagon quilt a long posts

Part one - selecting fabrics and getting the template - is below!

Part two - cutting

Part three - placing

Part four - Making the quilt top

Part five - quilting

Part six - My finished half hexagon quilt

Oh! lordy what is she upto now??  More sewing?  Doesn't this women have meals to cook, shelves to dust, grime to scrub????  Just in case you were wondering (??) of course I do!  but I wouldn't dream of blogging about it, well not much anyway. 

  

The pillow you see above is one of a pair I just made for Ciara who has to hug pillows to lull her to sleep, only she over-hugs them until they are in need of much makeoverness. 

 

Before you start wondering how I find the time to create ruffles and patchwork them together with fabrics and crochet trims, let me tell you how easy it is.......I just pop into John Lewis in my lunch hour and buy the above wantingly beautiful fabric readily patchworked for a dreamy £6-ish for half a metre and knock up the two pillows in a couple of hours to much hugging applause from the lovely little miss C.

These are the two pillows I just replaced, The shabbiest of shabby-chic!!

Half hexagon quilt-a-long part one!   May I hereby present to you episode one of the quilt-a-long!  Joining me in the cast so far will be katy, hook and scumble, ann, rita, stephanie, sumea, kathleen, kelli and annie.    I will be adding these names to my sidebar so that we can check up on each others progress as we go, along with any others who decide to join us.

To get your template

Please email my friend Ruth at ruthdesigns(at)ntlworld.com

She will send you the file of templates, which now includes five

different sizes from 1.5" to 3.5".

(you will receive all the different sizes in the one file)

 Also take a look at these links which explain in a nutshell what will be doing!

cutting, joining and layout.

Please work at your own pace and add any queries you may have in the comments below, please also feel free to answer any of the queries in the comments too!!

 I shall be making a 67.5" long x 72" wide quilt, this is made up of 756 half hexagon pieces or 378 pairs (remember each hexagon is made up of 2 halves of the same fabric).  Very roughly I would say I'm looking at around 30 x quarter metre/yard cuts of fabric.  Although it's always best to have more.

The photo's above and below show the designs I am thinking of using, mostly bought from here.  I think small scale designs with an all over print work best for this design as they conceal the join in the centre of the hexagon more.  Please feel free to completely oppose this though!  One of the joys of us all quilting along together will be to see all the different approaches and end results!!  I always use 100% cotton fabric and thread.  I also find it a good idea to gather all your selected fabrics and then leave them lying around for a few days, somewhere you can see them as you whizz past getting on with all the other things you get on with.  This will really help you see how the fabrics work together as a group and you can update your selection if you need to before you start.

 

Hope this helps, I'll be adding the next instalment hopefully some time next week to give you time to get your fabrics ready.

For now, some bank holiday flowers...

 

The colours of these tulips remind me of those tutti-frutti sweets.

 

I adore these pink edged carnations and need to look at them hourly!

Happy Bank-holidaying!!  

More soon.........