It's so exciting to see how many of us are hooked on the hexagons! I've seen some great hexes out there! This weekend, I've been thinking about layouts for my charm quilt.
If you saw my
first hexagon post, you may remember that I was a skeptic. I didn't plan on actually
enjoying making hexagons, I only wanted to see what the fuss was about. So, the first batch of hexagons I made contained a number of duplicates. Those are above. My skepticism is also the reason I started with one inch hexagons. I wanted to
waste as little fabric as possible on this
experiment.
After my hexagon enchantment, I decided I wanted to make a charm quilt; no two fabrics alike. I had already pieced a number of hexagons together, but I chalked those up to practice and decided to start a new batch without duplicates. Some of those are above.
If you are doing a true charm quilt, I think there's a decision that will need to be made in the beginning. Are you going to sew them together in random order as you make them or create a planned layout, perhaps by color?
With a sew-as-you-go random layout, (like the one above) you can sew the hexagons together as you create them and that could be a very good thing. In my case, this would make the likelihood of a finished quilt much more of a possibility. Making the hexagons is fun, quick and, addictive. But, sewing them together takes a little longer and requires more focus. I can just imagine myself months from now staring into a shoebox of over 1,100 hexagons and thinking "I have to sew all those together now!?! Ugh!"
One drawback of the sew-as-you-go layout might be that you use all the fabrics currently in your stash and they end up in the same part of the quilt rather than being spread throughout the quilt. For instance, all your Moda Wonderland is kind of clumped together. One way to remedy that might be to sew your hexagons together in small-ish sections and wait until you are near the end to sew all the sections together. That way, new fabrics you add months from now can be interspersed with your older fabrics.
A more planned layout
can be extremely attractive, but requires a little forethought. I was playing with some of my hexagons and I really like the color spectrum layout (above). I find it very visually appealing. But, in order to get a true color spectrum, I think I'd need to make the majority, if not all, of my hexagons prior the sewing them together. That brings me back to the shoebox of 1,100 plus little, loose hexagons.
This layout uses a single color sewn into a flower and then placed in a color spectrum. I didn't have enough hexes done to fill this one in more, but it's a nice possibility. I'll call this one the flower spectrum layout. The flowers (seven hexes) could be sewn together as you go leaving you with only sewing the flowers together in the end, but the color flow might not be as nice as laying them all out individually prior to sewing them together.
In this layout, I could create flowers of a single color feeling and then sew the flowers together at random. This method could easily be sew-as-you-go and makes me think of organized chaos. It's quickly growing on me.
My dilemma? I need to decide! I've made well over 250 one inch hexagons, but only about 180 of those are one-of-a-kind. I've already sewn about 55 of those 180 together and I can't use those in any kind of a planned layout; they are totally random.
If you are doing a charm quilt, have you decided what type of layout you are using? I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions!
