For a while now, I’ve wanted a hands on craft that I could do in the evenings when the kids are all in bed and it’s just Daniel and I in the living room watching a movie or whatever. And for years I’ve gone back to the usual Crochet, Knitting, Coloring. Well none of those were really doing it for me. Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of videos on my social medias about hand quilting. And then I saw a hexagon quilt video and it seemed like a great way of using up fabric while also making something very useful!
I watched the video over and over again because the first part of it- the making of the hexagons, looked ridiculously easy. Sure enough, when I attempted it, my first ones were turning out kinda wonky, but I was getting the hang of it. Even now I’ve done a couple dozen of them at this point and I’ll still make a mistake every now and again.
I decided to try out the hexagon quilting because I can remember there were times at work when I’d fix the stuffed animals, while working on a lesson plan. The simple act of keeping my hands busy while thinking about something worked really well for me. There were many times my supervisor would walk in on me fixing one of the stuffed toys, and after a while she finally realized- not only was I fixing toys (which if you do it right can be a great lesson in teaching empathy) but I was also trying to think of really quality things to put on the lesson plan.
Making the Hexagons
To make the hexagons you need a circle, something you can trace. I used the lid from a tumbler. Cut out the circle and then your going to fold it pretty sides together. Fold it again. With your needle and thread, your going to poke through the center point, and then unfold your circle completely.
Once you’ve got your thread anchored, its time to make the hexagons. Now at first, this part confused me, but the more I did it, the more I got it. I feel like making these hexagons are the perfect way for people wanting to learn how to hand sew to learn, all the stitches are very basic stitches, and are so repetitive that it really helps create that muscle memory effect.
Once you have multiple hexagons made this is where you can let your creativity lead you. Some people enjoy making little hexagon quilt pieces, in a flower shape, other people might do a traditional quilt style where you sew many different pieces together. That is all up to you. Personally, I’m doing mine a traditional quilt style just because of the different types of material scraps that I’m using for this project.
Baking the Quilt
This I still need to do research on. But its gonna be a long time before I’m at that step. This project is one of those working on in the evening projects while your watching a movie or having family time. It doesn’t require a lot of space or stuff, just some light. So considering theirs no time limit for this project its more than likley going to be a few months before I’m ready to back the quilt (which I might also do on a machine. That has also not been decided yet)
