How to Make a Flower Hexie

<< Overview       << previous: Day 8

Day 9

The Flower Hexie is the third Double-faced Hexie of this series. It’s great as a stand-alone ornament for instance for attaching to bags, place mats, cushions, accessories, but also pops up from any flat surface.

Depending on fabric, embroidery and embellishments, it can look like a straightforward geometric shape, a flower, a star, or a crystal.

On this page:
♣ Materials and tools today
♣ Marking the Flower Hexie
♣ Folding and stitching the Flower Hexie
♣ For you to do
♣ Next time

Materials and tools today

• a cut hexie (Tip: start with a large Flower Hexie; until you know what to do, they’re are a bit easier to fold). If you want it to match the Trefoil and Pinwheel Hexies in finished size, use the Flower Hexie Template from page 2 of the template set.
• the Flower Template and the Star Template (from page 3 of the template set)
• sewing needle and thread
• scissors

Click on images for larger view

Marking the Flower Hexie

Lay the cut hexagon right side up on a hard working surface. Then put the Flower Hexie Template around the cut hexie.

Put the Star Template inside the Flower Template and align the points with the green halfway marks.

Hold Star Template down and mark the inner points with a marking pen or pencil.

The marked hexagon.

Close-up. I marked with dark blue coloured pencil which I twirled to make the dot really obvious for you (= the right dot). You’ll just want it to be visible and not rub off before you need it (= left dot).

Folding and stitching the Flower Hexie

The first round: Gathering the petals

As usual, I start with the center cross, with the wrong side of the fabric facing up.

Unlike the Trefoil and Pinwheel Hexies, I make the stitches at the middle of an edge, not the corners.

To find that middle, I fold the two adjacent corners backwards (= right sides together).

I pinch the fold a bit, but only right by the cut edge.

I catch a few threads of the edge (not too close to it)…

…and pull a bit. You can see how the edge folds inwards.

I do the same with the following edges.

Here you can see what we’re going for.

To close the round, I make one stitch outwards right by the first stitch.

Pulling tight.

Securing with two (!) small Buttonhole Stitches.

Now find a dot, with a corner of the fabric showing towards you, and pinch the edge on either side of it into a sharp point (no need to crease the hole edge now). – Repeat for all dots/corners.

If you haven’t marked the hexie – or if the dots have become invisible – you can fold each side like this in order to find the new corners.

Check the folds with the Star Template.

The second round: Folding and stitching the petals

Find a dot,…

…and from that dot fold the corner towards the center of the hexie. The two folds underneath should be as close together as possible. Press.

From the dot downwards,…

…I crease the new folds, first one side…

…and then the other. I use the nail of my thumb to get a sharp crease.

With the needle, I temporarily get hold of a few threads near the corner – not too close or it might fray.

With the index finger of the other hand I hold the upper part down while lifting the corner upwards,…

…all the way to the point.

You can see how the two raw edges meet in the middle.

I hold the needle against my index finger while creasing the new folds all around – once again, as sharply as possible.

Then I hold the flap and reposition the needle – you can feel where the layers are underneath.

Keeping the needle where it is, I fold the flap down and once more creas the folds. – No worry if you can’t get all the layers perfectly aligned to a point; there’s always something that slips. Just do your best 🙂

I’m going to make the petals clockwise = to the right. Therefore I start stitching the layers down on the left side of the petal – one stitch through both folds and catching a few threads from the fabric underneath.

Then on the right side of the petal: Catching a few threads from underneath and through both folds. – Then move on to the next petal to the right, but only stitch down the left side of it.

I decide to do 3 extra stitches to unite the two petals, that is to keep them from opening up. These extra stitches are not absolutely necessary – and the Flower Hexie (left) will look slightly flatter – but I do recommend making this little extra effort for any hexies that are going to be handled a lot, or washed, or are made from fabrics that don’t hold creases well – saves a lot of bother later…

The first stitch goes into the corner of the right flap of the left petal, just a little bit towars the back so it won’t show on the front.

Perhaps you can see the fosition here.

The second stitch goes through the corner of the left flap of the right hexie – but this time the needle comes from underneath.

Before pulling the thread through, I also catch – coming from below – the lower fold of the left petal again, right where I did the first stitch.

The third stitch goes between the folds of the right petal, coming out near the center where I started off.

Perhaps you can see the threads here – I opened it. When the hexie lies flat, though, the thread won’t show. *** Repeat for all petals, then secure the thread as usual with two Buttonhole Stitches.

For you to do

Make at least one large Flower Hexie. When you feel comfortable with that, make a small one as well. You can also embroider them as you like 🙂 – have fun!

Next time

On Wednesday = Day 10 I’ll show you some variations on how to sew the fabric-covered buttons in the centers of the hexies.

Apart from the buttons you made and some hexies, you’ll need sewing/ embroidery material and tools and perhaps small buttons or beads for extra decoration.

If you have any questions, please post them in the comments 🙂

Maria

What kind of projects can you make with Double-Faced Hexies?

<< Overview     << previous: Day 1, Part 2

The first three hexies – just as they’re finished. How could you decorate and embellish them? Which projects could you use them for, as stand-alones or in combination with “normal hexies?

plain Trefoil Hexie

plain Pinwheel Hexie

plain Flower Hexie

Today a friend asked me what kind of projects she could make with these Double-faced Hexies.

Well, most of what you can make with normal hexies, be they sewn by machine or by hand, for instance EPP = English Paper Piecing.

The Double-faced Hexies can be made in any size you like – although personally I wouldn’t fancy folding hexies smaller than our small template, which results in a hexie with a side length of roughly 2.5 cm – 1 inch. If you’re into tiny mini hexies, you’ll get faster results the traditional way (see below).

The project size ranges from single hexies (examples: attached to napkin rings, hair pins, embellishments sewn on to pillows, blouses, napkins,…) over small groups of hexies (examples: pincushions, cases for glasses, purses, photo frames, journal covers,… or larger groups (examples: pillowcases, cushions, tote bags, place mats, table runners, fronts for waistcoats,…) to really big projects like double-faced tablecloths, king-sized bedspreads and beyond.

The biggest difference between the Double-faced Hexies and the “normal” way of doing a quilt is the process:

Traditionally, in quilting you have 3 layers – top layer, batting, and backing – which are joined and quilted together into one big sandwich.

The top layer is often made as patchwork, for instance with hexagons sewn together. Not considering the seams, this is a single layer of fabric.

Once this layer is finished – for instance the size of a bedspread –  it is combined with batting and backing the size of the top and then quilted. A big (and often heavy) project!

With Double-faced Hexies, you finish one hexie = one mini sandwich at a time. Batting is often not necessary as the hexies have at least 2 layers of fabric already – but you can easily add to each hexagon a bit of batting for extra padding. I’ll show you in a later post how to do that.

That means that you can for instance make a king-size bedspread by joining single hexies into groups or strips, then into larger groups or wider strips and so on, but until the very end you don’t have the whole bulk. You keep your project manageable = transportable, quilting on the go and as you go.

And once you’ve sewn the hexies together, your project is finished!

Another significant difference is the added dimension.

Because traditional hexies consist of just one layer of fabric, they are flat.

The Double-faced Hexies however are folded (plus one variety which is plain), which adds a lot of three-dimensional texture to the surface. Plus there are various quick ways of embellishing them for special effects.

The different types of Double-faced Hexies (plain or folded) can also be mixed and matched as the templates are coordinated in size.

[examples/images will follow here]

Last but not least: Multiple ways of joining the hexies

Because we are working with single pieces, we can join them in many different ways, including leaving space between the hexies for a lacy look, combining them with other techniques like crochet, or filling spaces with needle lace.

Which means that with these hexies you can do many things that you can’t do the traditional way.

Special designs for Double-faced Hexies

I’m very busy at the moment stitching projects (smaller ones which don’t involve more than a dozen or so hexies) which utilise all these special features. I’ll post them as I go, in stages.

Where to get more ideas

For hexie projects in general, enter for instance the following words or phrases into a search engine (like google, bing,…) and click images:

quilting hexagons

quilting hexies

quilting hexagons small projects

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I hope this cleared a bit of confusion. If not, please ask questions in the comments section.

Tomorrow = Day 2 we’ll start with some simple embroidery. Apart from two Trefoil Hexies you’ll need embroidery thread, an embroidery needle with a sharp point and scissors.

Maria