How do I love hexagons.....let me count the ways!

Get yourself a cup of something warm and sit back because I've got lots of pictures for you today. I love hexagons. I see fabric and I think.....hexagons! And that is exactly what happened yesterday when I was at Fabricland for their 40% off sale! It is a Canadian chain store but they don't have any mail order services...it is in store shopping only. I saw this fabric and all I could see was fussy cut hexagons! The swirls and flowers and leaves would be great for creating secondary designs! And at 40% off I don't feel guilty cutting into it!

I made myself a window template from a 1" hexagon and positioned it over a flower. What a great centre this would be for a ring of hexagons!

I love this one too! Stunning! Click here to learn more about making window templates and clear templates for fussy cutting.

But this fabric is a larger print and I would like to capture more of the print. I had previously written about constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing hexagons so I decided to construct a shape based on the hexagon that would work for this fabric. I pulled out a sheet of 1" hexagons and I added a triangle to the bottom of the hexagon by extending the lines on the sides.

I cut out this new shape and that produced a little window template that I was able to move around my fabric.

Here are some examples of what I saw!

For now I decided to work with this motif! I then fussy cut six for my block. You can read about how I fussy cut here.

Here they are basting to the papers. You can read the basic of how I English paper piece here.

And now the fun begins! Here is the first arrangement. Nice but I think the centre needs something.

If I were to applique a little circle over the centre it gets more interesting!

Here it is with a little flower in the centre.

How about with a large flower?

Now if we rearrange the shapes so that the points face out this is what we end up with! We could leave it as is or we could add the flowers to the centre to see what happens.

This is what happens. Interesting, no? Interesting YES!

Lets try a dark centre. Nice but now that I've seen little flowers or circles in the centre it looks boring!

So let's jazz it up with a flower

or a circle

 

What would I do with these shapes? I could make a hexagon quilt or I could give them a good pressing with a hot iron and spray starch so that I could remove the basting threads and papers. Then I would just applique them onto square blocks. Add sashings and cornerstones and you would have a lap quilt in no time flat!

 

I hope you feel inspired to look at fabrics in a whole new way. And here's one last tip; if you are going fabric shopping for something that would be suitable for hexagons or diamonds, make yourself some window templates out of cardboard or plastic and keep them in a zip lock bag in your purse. That way you can audition different prints to get some idea about how the fabric might work in a hexagon! That's what I did when I made Mom's Flower Bed. I was able to make almost all of the stars from one fabric!

 

 

Until I post again, happy hexagoning!