Hexagon Quilting Patterns Can Provide Unique Designs

For quilters, hexagon quilting patterns are one of the oldest and easiest to make, not considering squares and circles, but many complain that it takes such a long time to cut out all the material. While hexagon quilting patterns can be labor intensive and time consuming there are a couple of tricks to speed up the process.

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

Many of the hexagon quilting patterns by their simplicity appears much more complicated to cut out. They are basically a six-sided figure and to begin with, cut a strip of cloth as wide as you need for the size of the hexagon, plus the border. Then mark a line at the center of the cloth, which will be used as a guide for the center point of the design.

Triangles Will Be Cut By Default

Mark the first hexagon based on your pattern and then, insuring you leave room for the border, continue along the length of the cloth until you reach the end, drawing more hexagons on the material. To make the job faster, you can stack many pieces of fabric on top of each other so that when you cut one from the hexagon quilting patterns, you can cut several at once.

If you stack eight layers of fabric, and fasten them together securely, you can cut eight hexagons as once. When doing this you have to be careful that the layers of fabric stay together or the shape of those on the bottom may vary from those closer to the to. Most of the hexagon quilting patterns will also have patterns for the triangles needed for your quilt, but those will already be cut out due to the shape of your hexagons.

Remember that if you are planning to make a two-sided or reversible quilt, you will have to cut double of everything. If you want the two sides to look alike, cutting from the hexagon quilting patterns can be done by stacking even more cloth layers together. Experts claim that eight layers are the maximum, but if just starting out with quilting, it may be better to cut no more than four layers, cutting more often.