Twisted Hexagons & Making Do

Twisted Hexagons is my favorite "go to" pattern for little kids. You can capture a fabulous motif in the center hexagon and then finish it off with 6 half-hexagons. No y-seams (you know the story). I used just about the very last of the collection with only ONE fat quarter remaining. Aren't these fun fabrics from 2012?

Sockey the Monkey and his fabrics

Here's a single block from a previous quilt. Don't those monkeys look happy?

I finished my last set of blocks last weekend (actually, on Memorial Day). I put the 3 horizontal rows together and then scoured my stash for borders. Don't you just love the black and white dots?! The blocks are 10" high, with a 5" high center hexagon.

9 Block Twisted Hexagon quilt: 40" x 46"

OK. You're probably wondering what the "making do" in my blog title has to do with this. Well, let me show you. I needed two more half-hexagons in the red with yellow bananas. And so I pieced the fabrics. Here - let me show you. This is the bottom center block in the quilt above. And I had to piece the white setting triangle (on the left), too!

Twisted Hexagon block with pieced half-hexagons

Do you think some little kid is going to cry: "Mommy! Mommy! Do you see this mistake in my quilt? Oooooh. I don't want it!" HA! Never gonna happen. Once this is quilted, even the most calculating quilter's expert eye won't see it.

Lesson? Don't ever be afraid of piecing patches together to get what you need to finish a quilt. I have done it dozens of times in my 30+ years of publishing my quilts - and it's even happened with quilts that have gone on magazine covers!

You can find the pattern for a quilt with nine 10" blocks here: Twisted Hexagons with 10" blocks

And the same pattern for a smaller, 6 block quilt (33" x 39"): 6 Block Twisted Hexagons quilt

It's easy to cut the whole and half hexagons with a standard 60 degree triangle ruler, but I've also added paper templates in the pattern.