Sewing the border hexagons together

Eloidastitches asked about the size of the yellow strip in my "made fabric" hexagons that will form the border of my Birds in the Loft hexagon quilt. I had mentioned that I could have used 3/4" hexagons to make this quilt and she also asked if it would be possible to make the stars with smaller hexagons; I'll write about that in an upcoming post this week. For now I'll talk about the size of the scraps I used for my "made fabric". The pale yellow strips started out at 3/4" wide (by 2 1/4" long) and finish at 1/4" wide more or less. For the following hexagons I cut the red fabric 2 1/4" wide. The piece that goes on top is 1" x 2 1/4" and the bottom piece is 2" x 2 1/4". These hexagons are used only on the sides as fillers.

Side filler "made fabric" hexagons

In this pictures you can see the fillers positioned between the stars between the stars along the top edge. I'll stitch them in so that I have a relatively straight edge to which I can sew the next border when it is stitched together.

The majority of "made fabric" hexagons are cut from strips that are 2 5/8". I need two reds that are 1 1/2" and one yellow that is 3/4" x 2 5/8".

"Made fabric" hexagons that will be used for the border

I'll also need to cut a pile of red hexagons to fill in certain spots between the "made fabric" hexagons. So far I have stitched and basted almost all of the "made fabric" hexagons.

This is my quilt diagram; it shows one quarter of the quilt. The first thing I want to do is make the corner units for the border.

This unit will fit in the upper left corner and the lower right corner.

This unit is a mirror image of the unit above and it will fit in the upper right corner and the lower left corner.

The next step is to start sewing the "made fabric" hexagons (that will not be used as fillers) into pairs like this example below.

To make the units that will attach to the sides of the quilt I will sew two pairs together and add two solid red hexagons.

They will fit together perfectly to make the side borders. In the following picture you can see two together. The green line indicates where they will be joined.

For the top and bottom borders I will sew two pairs together a little differently and I'll only need to add one solid red hexagon.

You can see how these units will fit together in the following picture. The green line indicates where they will be joined.

If you refer to my quilt diagram you can see how everything will fit the quilt.

That's it for today. I'm itching to sew like crazy. These components stitch up very quickly so it will go fast! Soon I'll have a finished quilt top and then it will be on to the next quilt. Wonder what it will be! I've got so many ideas that it is hard to choose!

I'm linking up with The Needle and Thread Network; it is where Canadian bloggers share what they are working on!

Until I post again, happy sewing!
Karen H