How to Sew Partially-Seamed Hexagons

I came across this technique last year when I was working on a project for John Louden, only then I used squares, and I found it was much simplier than it looks! Thankfully, it is equally as simple with hexagons, which made my latest quilt, Floating Hexagons a joy to make. 

So I thought I would share this joy and give you an easy-follow guide on how to make these simple blocks. I am working with 4½” hexagons, and 1½” x 4" white border strips.

1) Take your coloured hexagon and pin a white strip along its top edge, with the left side hanging over the end of the hexagon very slightly. Sew only halfway across this seam, shown by the red dashed line. Secure with a couple of back stitches, and cut thread.

2) Open the seam and finger press upwards. Now moving anti-clockwise, pin your second white strip along the next edge of the hexagon and carry on across your first white strip. Sew along this whole seam, and cut thread. 

 








3) Unfold and fingerpress this second strip back as you did before, and carry on with your next three white strips. 

4) When you get to the last strip, fold your first strip up and out of the way so that you can sew along the whole last side of the hexagon. Fingerpress this strip back as before, then fold your first strip back down so that your can see your first seam, pin and sew along the whole length of your first strip, finishing off your partial seam, and so that your first and last white strips are joined like the others.

5) Now use your quilter's ruler to trim your block up, my block needs to be 6½” tall, so I aligned my ruler as below, noting that the 1¼” ruler marks line up with the inner seams of the white strips.

6) Trim all your ends and you now have a partially seamed hexagon!

7) If you would like to put this new skill to work, look out for my latest pattern, Floating Lilies, which uses these blocks together with triangles to make this gorgeous quilt. This pattern will be released onto sewmotion.com very soon!
 

Thank you for visiting, your comments are always welcome. If you are looking for more handy tips, why not pop over to Late Night Quilter's Tips & Tutorials Tuesday link up. Enjoy!