Alright all you quilt piecing fans out there today’s tutorial is made just for you. That’s
right we’re to make this awesome Hexagon Color Wheel using a fabulous half hexi template.
Let’s get started.
A big thank you to Cotton and Steel, a wonderful group of designers that have helped me put
together this collection to make this awesome color wheel featuring their new color spectrum
fabrics. Now, check this out. We have taken 42 pieces off of this five by five pre cut
pack. And we’ve started over here with their lightest color, right? And we go all the way
up and around the wheel. And as we come back around you’re going to find that last print
there waiting for you. Isn’t that great? So I’m going to work from my fabrics right
off of the stack. And even better than that down in the description below right next to
that subscribe button we’ve got a couple of awesome printables. One of them right here
is the actual photographs of the fabric in the same color order that I’ve used so that
you know how we’ve put it together. And then we’ve got a really cool half hexagon,
or excuse me I should say hexagon coloring page that you can use like I did here to determine
how you’re going to piece together your half hexis. There are 42 pieces in the collection.
And so I had to figure out how I could get 42 of them to fit in the fun diamond shape
around and stay in order. So I did a pencil and a little bit of math. And I didn’t get
it right the first time. But once I figured out all 42 pieces I’ve colored it in and
this little page is exactly what you see on the wall behind me. So we’ve got lots of
work to do today and it’s a ton of fun. But I want to teach you how to get your fabrics
ready for the piecing. And then I’m going to walk you through how the strip management
construction happens.
So first of all let’s start with some of those squares, right? So they’re five by
fives. And I’m going to stack them up as organized as possible and obviously keeping
them in my color order. Then what I’m going to do, you can do about eight of these at
a time. We’ve got a half hexi template like this. And what I like to do is I like to set
that half hexi so that your center line is this way. And then what I can do with the
small edge right on the edge is I can cut here. Now I’ve got a lazy susan so I should
use it. I can cut here. And I can spin, uh oh. Cut here. So that forms the first stack.
And then I can do the same on this side. When you’re cutting lots and lots of layers like
this take a minute to slow down because you want these to be fairly accurate as you’re
working. And then once you have them put together like this I want you to go ahead and match
them back up, two by two just like you’re doing for the ark. And then just flip them
upside down like yay and start to stack like that, ok? Once you have all of your color
or your spectrum fabrics cut out like that, there will kind of be a big pile. This is
the same thing going on. Then what I did is I counted down to 22 of them and I split them
so that I could start to manage because we’re doing a wheel which means where we start we
also kind of have to stop. So we have to go in both directions. So just split your piles
so that they’re organized. We’ll start working off of them. You probably saw a few
of the fabrics were missing. I’ve already started building strips for us, right?
We’ve got to talk about those gray back pieces. And yes this entire background is
pieced. I didn’t do it in strips. I did the piecing all the way throughout the background
because I believe that helps with the construction. It helps hold everything together and something
great places to quilt to use those lines in the piecing for my quilting lines, right?
We’ll talk more about that in a little bit. So for that background fabric I literally
purchased 4 ½ yards. And I think I used every single inch of it when I did the binding and
everything. Take about 3 ½ yards as you’re getting started and cut them into 2 ½ inch
wide strips by the width of your fabric. Once you have those cut out, take one at a time
we’re going to fold it up so you can make lots of cuts at once but just do it one strip
at a time. I love this green selvedge they’ve got on this print but it’s kind of wide.
So I’ve slid it down so that my selvedges match up to maximize my strip. Then my first
fold hits the selvedge. My next fold hits that fold. And that will give us just enough
that we can lay our template on there just like that and start to cut. And I just turned
the music up one afternoon and I cut like I said 3 ½ yards worth of 2 ½ inch strips.
I can’t even tell you how many hexagons it is, somewhere near a million I’m sure.
Make your stack, very easy like that. And now you’re ready for all of your piece work.
And it can be a ton of fun but it can be just a little bit of a challenge. So I want to
show you how to line up your seam allowances because the first couple times I did this
I struggled a little bit. You’re piecing on the bias. You definitely want to use good
construction management. So we’re going to be looking here for this point and this
point. You’re going to be laying your fabrics right sides together. So first I make sure
they’re going to match. That’s not going to sew. That’s going to sew. Then we’re
going to bring this over here. And I am now matching this straight edge actually to the
other straight edge. So now this point to this point. And that generally gives me a
great piecing and construction. However, let me show you really quick, I had it happen
in one of my rows. You see this right here? I actually pieced that a couple of different
times. I got off to a bad start I guess. Maybe one of the pieces was cut a little bit bigger
than the other. I had this happen several times with that many half hexagons. But when
I put all my rows together I never noticed it. So I want you to be careful, if it gets
much more of a gap than that let’s go ahead, seam rip it, press it and re-piece it. But
if you’re like that it will still work. Don’t sweat it, don’t perspire. Don’t
spend too much time. Just get back into your piecing.
So piecing, how do we do that? Let’s start with our lightest color, right? Now that one,
let me show you in the quilt, way over here it is. And it’s one half hexi with two gray
pieces over it. The first couple of rows don’t follow our rhythm and then we get right into
pace. So we have this here and then we would need to sew on our two gray strips like that.
And when that’s all done you can see it looks just like this. Now that’s fairly
easy. I’m going to spin it so I’m going to work down this way here. Now the next row
is also a bit of a trick because you need to bring the bottom of the first hexi into
position but you also have to prepare for the next two colors. So here I have the next
color in my stack going one direction and then I have the last color in my stack coming
off the other direction. So again that was that bottom piece and then this was that top
piece. I’m hoping that’s making sense. From this point on the new rule is wherever
we have a hexi we’re going to need to sew two hexis with color together is what I’m
trying to say. So for example, now we drop in this gray to separate and we add the bottoms
of these hexagons on. But now these must sew to other colors. So this is the next color
in the color order heading back to the top. This is the next color order in the color
heading towards the bottom of the wheel. It’s a circle, right? So that being said, from
this point on every row we’re going to add two gray pieces into the center. So my next
piecing looks just like this. Hopefully you can see there’s one, two, and three of the
half hexis right there. Here comes these pieces and I get so proud of myself at this point
many of times I start adding a gray piece there. Stop! Hold the phone. You’re not
doing that. Remember we’ve got to add in the next colors. So back to my management.
Remember these were the piles I counted down. So with that countdown, that now means that
this piece is going to end up here because this is the color order going that way. And
this piece is going to come right over there. This is the color order coming down that way.
I’m hoping that makes sense. You want to see me sew some of them together? I bet you
do.
So let’s go ahead and do that. I’m going to bring this on over. And fun enough after
enough piecing you’ll probably find out you can actually chain piece these gray pieces.
Because remember we’re just adding two so the next row we’ll have five of the gray
half hexis and then we’ll begin adding on our color spectrum pieces. So here we’re
just going to line this up. Coming into the machine here. And I’m also looking down
at that bottom corner to make sure that things stay lined up. I’ve got a cool quarter inch
seam guide on my machine which seems to really help. And then I’ll go ahead and open that
up. Not perfect but not too shabby either. That will certainly work. And then I’m going
to grab the other color on the other end and I’m going to bring it over here also. Line
it up to the best of my ability. Presser foot. And you’ll also notice that I’m not backstitching.
I think that might have been causing some of my issues early on, shifting the fabric
around. Ok and then I’ve got my other color piece on. And now at this point we can start
to add on the half hexis on the outside if we want to. But I’m also going to encourage
you to stop.
Follow me back here to the quilt one more time. I want to show you what I’m talking
about design wise. So on my design wall I did all the patchwork for the half hexis before
I did the diamond of the color spectrum fabrics. And obviously all of them the piecing in here.
But I did not start adding on the half hexis on the exterior of my color wheel. Because
I wasn’t sure how big I wanted to make the quilt. So you can add as many of these in
any direction that you need to manage the quilt to a size you would like, right? So
I just kept building my diamond piecing wise. And then I went back in and I added several
strips. And it was really easy because like I said we can chain piece these gray pieces.
And in doing that, or your background pieces. In doing that I start by doing two by two
by two piecing. So for example, here we’re going to go to the machine. I’m going to
take these two and I’m going to fold them like this. And when I’m looking at this,
in my brain I’m thinking the short side goes into the machine. So I can set up several
of these, forgot to cut the fold out of that one. So I can set up several of these while
sitting at the machine, don’t even have to get out of my chair where I have the short
sides leading. But after you get past your half hexi of the color fabric then the direction
changes. So sometimes you’ll come in there, right? I’m trying to goof off here. And
you will have your longer sides leading into the machine and they’ll look like this.
So you’re piecing for both directions and I build two by twos and then four by fours.
And some of these rows have like 17 of the half hexis up and down in these center rows
as well as this is roughly the same amount on the outer rows as well. So yes I definitely
want you to develop the entire quilt layout first . Get all of your piecing done. And
then it will be time to go ahead and join the long rows. And I did, I just started on
the outside and I joined this long row to this long row and then added and added and
added as I came all the way across. One of the things I also did though is I added in
a 1 ¼ inch so half of a 2 ½ inch strip on the outer side edges so that my half hexi
here wasn’t lost in the binding when I was all finished. And so with that I have all
of my background built and then it was time to baste stuff and get ready for the free
motion machine quilting.
And I must say, I was feeling a little overwhelmed with all of this open space in the center.
And I always try to start in the center. But I thought, hey it’s a color wheel. So I
took my ruler and I just counted over the peaks of a few of the hexis and I actually
built in what I see as spokes in my color wheel. But once I had those pie wedges in
place all I had to do was machine quilt in one pie wedge at a time. So it took a lot
of that overwhelming feeling away. And I wanted the focus to be fun on the free motion in
the center so then on the outer edges, I actually came over here and first ran a perimeter of
stitching. And I did it with my free motion foot but it is looking like stitch in the
ditch, all the way around the wheel. Once I got around the wheel then I came to the
point where the hexis met. And on the background I did a stitch in the ditch where I basically
was trying to lay out and carve into the quilt the look of the hexagons. That increases the
construction strength. Increases the development of the hexagon in the design and actually
gave me a really easy path to follow.
There are a bunch of awesome techniques and tips for you to work on and play with within
this project both color management and a little bit of piecing on the bias skills. And a lot
of fun to boot. So I hope you love this project. In the comments below I would love to know
how you’ve learned how to manage your colors as you become better and better at your quilting.
We’ll catch you next time right here at Man Sewing.