I made 100 half hexie hexagons for this quilt. I actually intended it to be a lot smaller but I was enjoying it so much, I got carried away! I used 8 and a bit of my '12 spring garden bird strips' for the central hexagons along with my 'Spring Garden fat quarter bundle' for the surrounding half hexagons.
For one half hexie hexagon you need:
4 hexagon paper templates. I used hexagons with sides 1 1/4 inches. As I said in the 'how to hexie' tutorial, you can either make them yourself with a template or buy ready cut ones online.
1 square of bird fabric
Spring Garden fabric for the outer half hexagons
1. Fold three of the paper hexagons in half as accurately as possible and cut along the fold to give six half hexagon paper templates.
2. Cut out six pieces from the Spring Garden fabric that are just bigger than 3 1/4 x 1 3/4 inches.
3. Take the whole paper hexagon and pin it to the back of the bird fabric, making sure that the motif is in the centre of the hexagon.
4. Turn it over and cut the fabric just over 1/4 inch all the way around the hexagon.
5. Fold the fabric over the edges of the hexagon and tack them to the paper.
6. Next, take a half hexagon and pin to the back and in the centre of one of the six pieces of spring fabric. Make sure that if the fabric has direction, it will end up in the direction you want.
7. Trim the fabric as shown in the photo below, leaving just over 1/4 inch all the way around.
8. Fold the fabric over the long edge and tack in place from the centre to the edge as in the photo below. Do not fasten off.
9. Starting where you finished tacking, fold the fabric over the short, diagonal side of the paper and tack all the way along.
10. Fold the fabric over the short side and tack. Then fold the fabric over the last diagonal side making sure you fold it UNDER the first fold. Tack it in place. By doing it this way, bulk is reduced in areas where the will pieces meet.
11. Repeat for the other five half hexagons. Press all your pieces to create sharp edges for sewing.
12. Now you need to sew them together using whip stitch. Take the central hexagon and one half hexagon and place right sides together. Sew as shown in the photo below. Don't fasten off.
13. Take another half hexagon and sew it to the next side along, only sewing the short edge to the side of the central hexagon. Repeat with the rest of the half hexagons all the way around the central hexagon.
14. To finish your half hexie hexagon, sew all the side seams together.
15. Press.
16. Once you've made all your half hexies (maybe in a year's time!), arrange them how you want and then sew them together in rows.
17. Then sew the rows together.
18. To make a border, make a template the same size as a whole half hexie. Use this to make enough whole, 3/4 and 1/2 hexie paper templates required to go all around your quilt. To make a border for my 10 x 10 half hexie quilt, I used 10 whole hexagons, 12 1/2 hexagons and 22 3/4 hexagons.
19. Cut your border fabric of choice just over 1/4 inch bigger than your paper templates. Then fold and sew as before.
20. Sew the border pieces to the main part of the quilt.
21. Carefully remove the tacking and all the paper templates.
22. Press and follow the usual quilting and binding processes (see my quilting basics blogs).
I hand-quilted my quilt 'in the ditch'.
I've found it really difficult to take a good photo of this quilt during the winter. I might be able to get a better one later on in the year. I hope you like it anyway. I was really pleased with the result and feel it was definitely worth the wait! I do love a spot of slow-sewing.