Facets of Time Quilt/ Template Plastic

I loved the look of this quilt made up of 'hexagons'. It is a pattern from McCall's Quilting pet/ Oct. 2011 issue. It is made up of strip sets of four 2 1/2 inch strips of batik fabrics. I had a package of 42 'Timeless Treasures' batik 2 1/2 fabric strips which I had purchased a year ago in Sedona, Arizona and I decided it was the perfect time to use them. :)

The strip sets are then cut using a triangle template which I had made from a sheet of X-ray plastic.  (I got the plastic at a quilt store in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan at no charge, because they had no regular template plastic.)  This was my first experience with template plastic and I had no idea at the time that regular template plastic is much thicker. This X-ray plastic is so thin that it was necessary for me to use a ruler when cutting the fabric. 

The other problem with using a thin template is that I kept shaving off pieces of the edge and it kept getting smaller, LOL!

One triangle is cut with the light fabric strip at the top, then the next triangle is cut in the opposite direction with the dark fabric at the top, alternating back and forth.  Each strip set will produce 7 triangles and only 6 are needed to make the hexagon, so I had a number of triangles leftover at the end.

I used all the leftover triangles to make this table runner. The directions for this table runner are in the same McCall's Quilting issue. (Sept/Oct. 2011)

Facets of Time table runner

  The tricky part was laying all the triangle pieces out in hexagons and then rearranging the patterns so that similar hexagons were not together, so the quilt top looked more balanced.  I laid all the pieces out on the spare bed, took some photos, re-arranged the hexagons and then took more photos till I liked the overall look.

Laying the rows of triangle out on the bed in hexagons

The quilt is sewn together in rows, (not hexagon by hexagon as you might think...) It was tricky sewing the triangle rows together as the triangles had to change orientation so that they would match up with the next row, thus creating the hexagon. I pinned each triangle to its neighbour and took a few at a time into the sewing room. After a couple of mistakes (sewing the triangles facing the wrong way) I finally got it all together.

'Auditioning' the borders

After that I added the extra setting triangles of brown batik at each end to make it square, (or should I say rectangular?). Then I sewed on a 4 inch border of the same brown batik fabric all around the quilt.  Next I added a narrow 2 inch green border to give it closure and last of all I added a wide 6 inch border of light colored batik branches fabric.

It turned out wider than I had planned because of all the extra borders and so the back fabric that I had wanted to use was no longer wide enough. I had to buy a different back fabric to use; this one is a medium colored brown batik with a dark leaf pattern which I really like.

I washed the kitchen floor, taped the back fabric face down, smoothed a large piece of cotton batting on top of that and then pinned the quilt top to the other layers. It is now draped over my banister waiting to be quilted. :)