Quilting Patterns

Hexagon Quilting Pattern Tricks

Once you settle on the size of the quilt you're going to make, figure out the size of the border it will have. Then you can measure how wide an area is going to be made of your hexagon quilting patterns. Whatever the width is, divide it by the size of the hexagons being used and round to the nearest whole number. This will determine how many hexagons you need for the width. Then repeat this process for your quilt length to come up with a total number of hexagons you will need for your entire quilt.

Many of the various hexagon quilting patterns appear much more complicated to cut out than they really are. You will find that they are basically a six-sided figure. To begin, cut a strip of cloth as wide as you need for the size of the hexagon, plus the border. Then you need to mark a line at the center of the cloth. This will be used as a guide for the center point of your design.

Cut More Than One Hexagon at a Time

Mark your first hexagon based upon your pattern. Then, remembering that you need to leave room for your border, continue drawing more hexagons on the material along the length of the cloth until you reach the end. To speed up the job of cutting hexagons, you can stack more than one piece of fabric on top of each other so that when you cut one from the hexagon quilting patterns, you also cut several at once.

If you stack eight layers of fabric, and fasten them together securely or baste them, you can cut eight hexagons at once. When using this method, you have to be very careful that the layers of fabric stay tightly together. If you don't, the shape of those hexagons on the bottom may vary in shape from those closer to the top.

Most of the hexagon quilting patterns will also have patterns for the triangles you need for your quilt. These become easy to assemble as those will already be cut out due to the shape of your hexagons.

The English Paper Piecing Method for Making Hexagonal Patterned Quilts

Traditional colonial and pioneer hexagon quilts were usually made using the "English Paper Piecing method". It is quite different from the modern paper piecing method described above. Today, English paper piecing is often used in the making of hexagon quilting patterns as it has again become popular with many modern hand quilters. Each piece in the quilt is pinned to its own paper hexagon pattern. The paper serves as a sewing guide and a support for the pieces.

To paper piece hexagon quilting patterns, a paper hexagon is placed on the wrong side (underside) of a fabric hexagon and held with a pin. The fabric is cut 1/4 inch larger than the paper hexagon pattern around all the sides. The extra fabric is to allow for a seam, (known as seam allowance). This is turned down over the edge of the paper to the wrong side and basted temporarily in place.

This process is repeated for every piece that will be in your quilt. When this step is completed, the next step is to sew all the pieces together. Then line the edges of two pieces up with their front sides together and whip-stitch (both edges caught alternately with the needle) the hexagons together.

Reversible Hexagonal Patterned Quilts

Remember that if you are planning to make a two-sided, reversible quilt, you will have to cut double the amount of fabric. If you want the two sides to be identical, cutting from the hexagon quilting patterns can be done by stacking even more cloth layers together to make more hexagons and triangles.