Hexie this and Hexie that, my way of doing Hexies

I was explaining to a friend the other day how you do Hexies by hand using cardboard shapes.  She said she had never heard of that before so I figured since I was working on a Hexie Table Runner for my table for this upcoming Christmas I’d try writing instructions on how to do this and use my progress.

First off you need Hexagon shapes in whatever size to stitch fabric to.  I have a 2” hexagon paper cutter I got at Hobby Lobby a year or so ago using a coupon.  People use other stuff to make theirs, some use freezer paper that when you iron shiny side down it will stick to the fabric and you never have to remove it.  I prefer cardboard, I don’t want to spend all that time ironing.  You can use old cards, or card stock from the store to cut your shapes. 

This is the cutter I used and some of my shapes

Now you need your fabric, like I said I’m making a Christmas table runner and found this cute pattern at the Moda Bake Shop a few years ago.  Theirs was machine sewn and I tried that but wasn’t really happy with it.  I had a bunch of 2 -1/2” hexies cut out so just used those to sew to the card board shapes.  You can cut out 2-1/2” squares that will give you enough for a seam allowance. 

 Next you have to sew the fabric around the shapes, this is done by hand and a great project to work on while you watch TV.  I did a bunch this weekend while binge watching House of Cards on Netflix.  You need some kind of clips to hold the fabric down as you fold it over the shapes to sew down.

  You go corner to corner until you have them all sewn down and looks like this.

Then of course you have to attach the hexies to each other,  use the same clips to hold two of them together and whip stitch from corner to corner.

You can make all kinds of shapes with these little things,  I was doing rows, 7 across once I got the first few done to make the correct shape of the runner, for a total of 16 rows.

 Once it's done your back with look like this, of course depending on the shapes you have made

You can press front and back to set the seams before you remover the templates. You use a crochet hook to remove the papers just pick a corner and pull gently.  Now you can reuse the templates for your next Hexie project.

Mine looks like this right now, I haven't pressed it yet.

Check back next week, I will have it finished and ready for the holidays :)

Pretty spring day

We have had a bit of rain the last few days, actually a lot last night.  I got up this morning and the sun was out and the grass was so green, I didn’t have my glasses on at first and saw a brown lump in the yard under where two of my trees are.  I thought it was a clump of leaves that fell off the tree(s).  Turns out it wasn’t, it was this cute little rabbit, just lying there in the grass.  It didn’t even move when I got a bit closer to take its picture.  My doggies didn’t even notice it.

After I took a picture of the bunny I had to get some of my roses.  They are blooming so nicely at the moment.  Several more have big fat buds on them so I see more lovely roses in my future. 

I have spent way too much time today sitting at this computer, think I need to go putter around and get a few things done.  But Einstein will be staying here taking his nap.

Another Swap for me

I decided to do another quilt square swap.  I have finished two swaps, but not the quilts J.  One the squares are together just working on the border, piano keys which are kind of tedious, the other is a Friendship Ribbon quilt in Christmas fabrics.  I will probably get that one together this month.  However, in the mean time I am now doing a Random Ohio Star quilt using Bonnie Hunters free pattern Random Ohio Stars.  I chose Civil War prints for mine.

This is all my way of saying don’t be in a rush.  I needed to have this blocks mailed to arrive before April 15 and I’m cutting it close, I will be mailing them today.  I was on a birthday adventure which I will be sharing in a few days and was gone for 10 days, when I got home I had to get caught up on so much stuff.  

I finally got a chance to sit down and sew and got to work on the 4 blocks I needed to made.  I made the half square triangles first, since I have learned chain piecing I decided to do all that part first.  Anyone see the problem here? 

 All the triangles are sewn on the wrong side, so I had to go back and sew them all on the correct side then take the wrong stitches out.  They look like this when done correctly.

They finish into this really nice block that is now going in the mail with 3 others.