Now we come to the sewing together of the half hexi blocks into strips!

I prefer to leave my half hexies up on my design wall. Aneela in our our original quiltalong advised, amongst other things, placing them in labelled zip lock bags, that is useful for people who cannot leave their work out but I find it easier to work direct from my design wall. I found that when I took the first strip down and placed the pieces in a pile that I reversed the angle of the seam somehow! It works better for me to keep the work up so I can see it…I guess I am a more visual person than I realised.

 

So take the strips one by one and sew the half hexagons together by aligning the seams at a slight angle….as in the photos above. When finished with each strip, after pressing with a hot iron of course, add it back to your design wall. A very satisfying experience as the hexagon blocks start to align…. as you can see in the graphic which was put together by Ruth of Ruth Designs. Some of the people who put their pieces away in bags put their completed strips, in order after pressing, over the top of their washing airers which is a great idea which came out of our previous quiltalong! Some other people laid out their strips on their work tables ready for sewing together.

Next simply sew the strips together, allowing your usual seam allowance of quarter of an inch and gently encouraging the seams to align, This should be easy actually, its almost foolproof…. yeah!

Once all your strips are sewn together and you have double or in my case treble checked that your seams match….press your quilt top

and congratulate yourself….the hardest part is over!

Here is a graphic showing how the edges will look once the quilt top is completed….the graphic allows for a larger area at top and bottom…you can measure and trim that down to a more exact measurement if you desire by trimming the top and bottom edges so that they are half the height  plus seam allowance, of the hexagons.

Adding a border is optional…some mosaic style quilts look better without them …its a personal thing.

Red Pepper Quilts did not add one and it looks fabulous

Neither did Cathy and hers is spectacular

Stephanie did not add a border to her quilt

Pokey is adding a hexagon style border to hers which looks fantastic

marilynk however  added a border to her mini quilt and it is stunning

Joan also added a border to her really unique quilt

Above you can see my previous top trimmed and ready for sandwiching, sans border.

Here is a really original quilt  by ashley

and another here by alissa…well worth checking out.

 

I am also working on this random style quilt in sherbet colours…will add it when I have completed the top. I removed some of the blocks…if you click on the photo you can see it on flickr and you can see which ones I removed…there are notes on the photo which I can’t do here! 

Next time…. sandwiching and quilting.

 

Again many thanks to Ruth for her help with the original inspiration  and for the graphics and template.

Don’t forget to add photos to Tutorials @ magikquilter.com on flickr!