Wisterious, 71½″ × 54″. Machine pieced by Elizabeth Vikla of Blue Bamboo. Quilted by Theresa Francisco.
Fabric, selvage to selvage, is about 42″ wide and we will refer to that as the width. The length of the pattern repeat determines the lengths of the cuts you make; you need to cut six of these lengths from your fabric to make the hexagons. A 24″ repeat means that you will make a cut every 24″. An 8″ repeat means that you will make a cut every 8″. However, if you buy twelve repeats of an 8″ repeat in order to make more blocks for a larger quilt, make each cut 16″ long.
Leave the fabric folded as it came off the bolt (selvage to selvage). Lay out your fabric and look along the cut edge to identify a design element that will be easy to recognize when it next appears. Move along either the fold or the selvages and look for that design element again. If the length of the repeat is short and you have purchased twelve, rather than six repeats, move along to the second repeat of this design element.
Single repeat
Double repeat
1. After you’ve identified a design element close to the cut edge of the fabric, use a rotary cutter and ruler to cut through the folded fabric at the place where this design element appears again. Put this piece aside.
NOTE: This is a rough initial cut. You are not trying for perfection yet.
2. Cut the next repeat the same way, so that the second cut ends at the same place in the design as the first cut. Stack this second cut on the first cut. Continue until you have six repeats cut.
Cut the next repeats.
3. You now have six cuts of fabric that are about the same. Unfold each cut and iron it to remove the crease from the center fold. Stack all the fabric pieces, without folding, making sure the design elements are facing in the same direction. Do not worry if the pieces are not exactly the same or if one is a little longer than the others.
You will insert six flower pins into the fabric pieces, as described in the following steps.
2 along one selvage
1 on each cut edge, approximately at the center fold
2 along the other selvage
1. Starting at a selvage corner, find a point where 2 design elements intersect. This point should be about 1″ from the cut edge of the fabric and about 1″ from the selvage. Do not use the end of a design element as your point. The end of an element may not always be printed on the fabric, but where design elements cross, they will always cross. Put a flower pin straight into the intersection point.
Intersection of design elements
2. Lift the top piece of fabric with the pin sticking into it to reveal the next layer of fabric. Push the pin into the spot on the next piece of fabric where the same 2 design elements intersect. Repeat for the remaining layers. Count the layers as you go. It is easy to miss a layer because it was folded in or did not reach the edge.
3. Leave the pin sticking straight up in the fabric layers. Repeat Steps 1 and 2 on the other cut edge along the same selvage.
Insert two pins along selvage.
4. There are now 2 pins sticking straight into the fabric pieces, one at either edge of one selvage. Hold the shaft of each pin between the index and middle fingers of each hand and press the top edge of each flower pin with your thumb. It looks awkward. It is awkward. But you really have a grip on the pins.
How to hold a pin
Holding two pins
5. Being sure to hold the pins, let the fabric hang loose and give the layers a little shake with your hands to straighten them. NOTE: If you prewashed the fabric, the layers will stick together and not shake out as freely. While holding the pins, give the fabric layers a gentle tug away from the center. Aligning the fabric is the hardest task.
6. Lay the fabric stack down. Check along the selvage edges and the cut edges to ensure that the design elements in the layers are aligned. Spread apart the layers of fabric to see whether the design elements match.
Fabric aligned
7. With the fabric stack resting on the table, hold the shaft of one of the pins so the index and middle fingers of one hand are behind the fabric and your thumb is resting on the front of the fabric. Do not turn this pin to secure the fabric. Turning the pin would ruin the alignment you have just worked so hard to perfect. With your other hand, insert another flower pin into the fabric layers so that it slides in almost parallel to the fabric. When inserting this pin, make sure it is at such a slanted angle that the design elements remain aligned. If you let go of the original pin, it should still stand straight. If the first pin does not stand straight, pull out the second flower pin and reinsert it, trying not to shift any of the layers as you do so. On the front side of the fabric, there should be a long space of fabric between the points where the pin entered and exited; on the back side, there should be very little pin showing. This indicates that the pin is slanted enough so as not to alter the alignment of the fabric layers.
First pin standing straight
8. Remove the pin that is sticking straight up beside the new pin.
9. Repeat Steps 7 and 8 at the other side of the selvage. You now have 2 pins securing the fabric.
10. Move along the fabric to where the fold line was. Put a flower pin in straight along each cut edge as described in Steps 1 and 2. Again, find an easily recognizable place where two design elements of a pattern intersect. These 2 pins will stick straight up. Hold on to them as described in Step 4 and give the fabric a little shake, tugging outward to align all the layers.
Hold two pins at center along fold line.
11. Replace each pin with a flower pin, as described in Steps 7 and 8.
12. Repeat Steps 1–9 along the other selvage. For this step it is easiest to turn the fabric around so the bottom selvage is at the top. The fabric is now perfectly aligned and you have 6 pins holding the layers in place. You can confirm this by looking at the print of the fabric along the cut edges to see that the design elements line up.
13. Use a rotary cutter and ruler to cut a straight edge along one side of the fabric stack from selvage to selvage. Only one edge needs to be cut straight. If the edge is not perfectly straight, that’s OK. You will be cutting small triangles, so you don’t need the edge to be exactly perpendicular to the selvage. Once you have aligned the fabric layers and cut the straight edge, you can relax and enjoy the rest of the process.
Cut a straight edge.
Generally, the length of the six repeats that you cut will be a multiple of 4″. We are not perfect, and don’t even want to try to be, so we cut our strips for hexagons at 3¾″, rather than 4″. This gives us a little breathing room when cutting, and it reduces the possibility of cutting identical strips.
1. Beginning at the trimmed edge of the stacked and pinned fabric, cut strips 3¾″ wide. As you pass a pin, put another one into the remaining chunk of fabric.
Insert pin into remaining fabric.
2. Lay out the 3¾″. strips horizontally, keeping the 6 layers neatly aligned.
3. Place the 60° Clearview Triangle ruler close to the selvage, with the ruler’s 3¾″ line at one cut edge and the point of the triangle at the other cut edge.
Align 60° triangle ruler on fabric.
4. Cut along the right side of the triangle ruler and then gently position a smaller rectangular ruler against the left edge of the triangle ruler. Remove the triangle ruler and make a right-handed cut. We know that some people can cut at awkward angles or use their non-dominant hand, but we can’t so we need a way to keep our cuts right-handed.
Line up small ruler.
5. For the next cut, place the 60° ruler on the strip as before, skipping the upside-down triangle. Be sure that the 3¾″ line at the right edge of the ruler is against the right edge of the fabric, that the point of the ruler is on the top edge of the fabric, and that the lower edge of the fabric is along the 3¾″ line on the ruler. Make a right-handed cut along the triangle ruler. Again, place a smaller rectangular ruler along the left edge of the triangle ruler, remove the triangle ruler, and cut again. You just cut 2 sets of triangles with one placement—2 for the price of 1. Keep each stack of triangles together. Each stack of 6 will make 1 hexagon block.
Cut next triangles.
Each 42″ strip of fabric will yield 18 or 19 triangles, and each stack of triangles will make 1 hexagon block. Because you are cutting 6 layers at once, you’ll have plenty of kaleidoscopic hexagon blocks to play with. Each strip will produce a different array of triangles, possibly even different colors, depending on your fabric. Handle the triangles carefully to avoid stretching the bias edges.
1. Keep the straight of grain to the outside edge of the hexagon. The straight of grain can be most easily seen on the wrong side of the fabric, where you can see the threads that did not get any dye.
Straight of grain
2. Sew sets of 3 triangles together to create half hexagons. Press the seams open—always. Some people are concerned about working with bias edges. We are not; the extra bit of stretch helps us to make corners line up with one another.
3. Pin the half hexagons together, but do not sew them into hexagons. This will enable you to sew the quilt together in rows without having to sew set-in seams. Instead of pinning as the seam would be sewn, with right sides together, pin the halves together with the edge of one overlapping the edge of its mate. This way, the hexagons lie flat when put on the design wall and the 2 halves stay together. You don’t want to mix up hexagons.
Pin half hexagons together.
4. Put your pinned hexagons on your design wall and get ready to play!
