Mixing up less than perfect fussy cuts

Today I thought I would share my latest Road 66 block and also talk about some fussy cutting options that you could consider.

I love working with stripes and directional prints because I can use the lines of the directional prints to place my hexagons on the back of the fabric and then cut them out. Stripes are far and away the easiest print to work with when fussy cutting.

Consider this pair of blocks from my quilt Birds in the Loft. I used a simple brown and blue stripe fabric to make these blocks. I made sure that the top and bottom corners of the hexagon were lined up on the outer edge of a blue stripe. As you may know I like to glue tack my paper hexagons to my fabric. The cheaper the glue the better and do make sure it is a fabric safe glue. By tacking the papers in this way I can cut out my fabric hexagons with scissors and I don't have to worry about pins. So, stars radiating out are fun and interesting.

But I am particularly fond of stripes that go around the centre hexagon. The cutting isn't perfect but I'm not worried about that because in a quilt with almost two hundred hexagon rosettes little imperfections disappear!

Sometimes you just don't have enough fabric to make a rosette. I had enough fabric to cut nine hexagons so I sewed six together to make the top rosette and I added three hexagons made with a similar fabric to create the second rosette.

Here is another example of making do with what you have. I had enough fabric to fussy cut three flowers and I used a stripe fabric for the other three.

This same principle of mixing fabrics has some added benefits. If your fussy cuts aren't exact the differences will show up when the blocks are sewn together because the designs won't match up. Using two fabrics instead of a single fabric will help disguise less than perfect fussy cuts!

This rosette is good. It needs another round of hexagons (12 this time) and the idea of fussy cutting 12 hexagons from a single fabric wasn't appealing to me. Also bear in mind that if you add a round fussy cut from the same fabric you will have to adjust how you fussy cut. I wrote about this here. Six hexagons will have a flat edge touching the centre rosette and the other six with have a point edge touching the centre rosette and this affects how you cut the fabric.

So what I did was mix it up; I cut six from a stripe fabric and I used six from made fabric and I made my open donut. You can see the circle isn't closed (inside the green oval) and this makes adding this round to the middle rosette so much easier. You can see how I add the open donut to the middle rosette here. Not only does mixing up the hexagons simplify the process of making the round but I don't have to worry about exact matches because the hexagons are separated by the alternating hexagons.

This can add an extra design element to the block when in fact the intent of using two fabrics or two different fussy cuts was to either disguise imperfect cutting or to eliminate the need to cut 12 hexagons from a single fabric. This is what the block looks like when it is all put together. It is the centrepiece of one of my workshop samples. 

Time for me to get cutting. I hope you find some time to take a few stitches today. Until I post again, happy sewing!

Karen H