Tutorial: Half Hexie ~ Fly Away

I had a chance to work with Amanda Herring's new beautiful line of Desert Bloom a while ago and designed this quilt "Fly Away". It is a simple quilt to make with half hexagons, but the way of putting the fabrics together make butterfly looking shapes instead of hexagons. The finished quilt is 38"x 56", it is perfect as a baby quilt. I am posting the full tutorial on my blog today, in case you missed it.

Here is how I made this:

1. Print out the PDF I created and trace it onto either thin cardboard (like a cereal box) or clear plastic to create the template.

2. I had a 7" x width of the fabric strips in 21 different fabric designs from her line. Choose three fabrics from them to make the binding tape later.

3. Lay one of the fabric strips flat on the cutting mat. Cut off the selvage and cut the strip to 6 sections of 3 1/8" x 7" rectangles. Now you have 12 (because they were folded in half) rectangles. Do the same with the other 17 strips. Depending on how you want to lay the fabrics out, you might need one fabric more than the other. With this cutting instruction, you will have quite a bit of leftover half hexies to give you that flexibility. You can make pillows or bags with the leftovers later.

4. Use the template you have created on step 1 and cut half hexies.

5. Lay them out to see the color balance. Don't they kind of look like butterflies?

6. Sew them together. There are a couple tips: Sew the pieces vertically first then sew the strips side by side. Also, when you are piecing the half hexies together, you want to lay them out right sides together and the little triangle is sticking out on the both ends as the picture is showing.

7. I decided to do straight stitches on the quilt and I like how it turned out.

Thank you for stopping by. Happy sewing! :)