1" Little Hexie Cushion Tutorial ~ Part 2 of 2

Firstly, thank you very much for all your kind comments on my post yesterday, it's clear lots of you fancy a go at this.  I would urge you to try, it's someting you can just pick up and do as and when, I think my first cushion was several months in the making!

Shirley asked yesterday about the whip stitch to connect the hexies, I thought I would show you how it's done rather than try to explain. Have a look at this YouTube Video ~ fast forward to 22 seconds.
 You simply sew through one side and straight out of the other, then bring your needle back to the start and enter the fabric next to where you started your last stitch, the cotton comes over the top each time.


As I don’t have another 144 mini hexies ready stitched I will show you the remainder of the cushion using the larger hexie front I have just completed ~ same principal.

Make the Cushion Back 

Next make a cushion back. You will need;

·        A zip ~ at least 16”long (a dress zip)

·        Two large rectangles of cotton 9" x 17”

·        Two small rectangles of cotton 3 ¼” x 2 ¾” (for ends of zip)

 

Start with the zip ends.  Iron a 1cm seam at each edge of the rectangle.  Fold the whole thing in half width ways and iron again.  Slip your zip end into the fold and pin in place.

 

Machine stitch this close to the edge.

Now trim the zip to the length required and add the second piece of folded fabric to the other end, pin and sew in place again.

The zip with ends attached should now be the same width as your cushion front.

Now place your zip, right side down on the long edge of your cotton (above left) and pin in place.  Machine sew the zip along one side using a zipper foot.

Now, turn your zip over and fold your fabric back, pressing it into place. 

(Trim your zip ends if they come past the end of your fabric)

  Place your second rectangle of cotton face down on your first (above right) and pin in place and machine sew as before.

Now, turn your zip over and fold your fabric back, pressing it into place.  When sewing close to the zip, as you get up to the bulky zip pull, with the needle still in the material; lift the foot and pull the zip pull past where you are sewing (above right), lower the foot and continue.

To keep the zipper neat and to stop the fabric from catching on the zip I always add a line of stitching to each edge of the zip using the zipper foot as a guide.

Now with right sides facing machine sew around each edge using a small stitch, then if you don't have an overlocker (like me) add a line of close zig zag stitches to give extra stability.  Trim your excess fabric and snip your corners to give a better finish.

Turn right side out and voila ~ you made a cushion.

You don't have to make a cushion of course, if you had the stamina you could continue on and make a fabulous quilt. 

One good idea is when you get fabric in a swap or as part of a present snip a bit off and put it in your hexie tin, when you construct your cushion you can look and see people in there through the fabrics you used.  Likewise with loved one's old clothes, snip them up and use them in your cushion.

I hope this tutorial made sense, if you have any questions or comments please get in touch.

Nb. Apologies for the dark photos in the cushion construction section, I was making this after work and I missed the light

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If you are interested in getting a little head start I have popped some starter packs in my folsky shop which come with;

♥ Full colour instructions,

♥ A little hexie needle case,

♥ 6 completed hexies to give you an idea,

♥ Approx 36 fabric squares (7cm x 7cm) enough for one quarter of your cushion,

♥ 150 little paper hexies to make your own 1" hexie cushion (no cutting required).

A good chunk of the work done for you ~ click here!

Please note there is only one of these left from the five I listed yesterday!  Thanks guys, if you need one give me a shout and I will make some more.

 

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~ ♥ TTFN ♥ ~

1" Little Hexie Cushion Tutorial ~ Part 1 of 2

I have been asked a few times to do an Idiot's guide to making and connecting the little hexies I used in my Hexie Cushion; so here it is.

Here's a good way to use up your scraps of fabric that are just not quite big enough to do anything else with.

I have a little tin that I always have close to hand and it contains lots of little hexagon shaped papers, lots of little scraps of fabric, a needle, cotton and a pair of little scissors.

Here is a link to a site that you can use to print out your hexie templates.  Remember hexagons are measured in inches by the length of one side, a one inch hexie will be just under 2" square once made.

As always there is always more than one way to skin a cat; but this is my way, this is how I do it.

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Make The Hexies

Cut your fabric into little squares, you can cut them into hexie shapes, but I quite like the bulk of the extra fabric.  Make the squares large enough so that they cover the hexie with a little overlap, mine are around 7cm x 7cm (or 2 ¾” square).

Start folding the fabric over along one side and move on to the next edge.  This is where you start your tacking, these can be really rough stitches as they are either going to be removed or left on the reverse.  

I prefer to tack on the back only just picking up the fabric and not sewing through the paper, this way there is nothing to remove at the end and these little stitches help to keep the hexie's shape once completed.

 

  

 

Another method is to just sew through the lot, fabric and paper and right out the other side, I think most people do this, but it is extra work at the end and leaves little needle marks in the finished fabric.

Now comes the hard bit, make 143 more :)

Arrange The Hexies

One you have a good stash of them you can plan how you want to sew them together.  I would recommend that you make enough hexies to complete your project, rather than making the hexies and sewing as you go.  This way you will have scope to plan where you want to place them all and move them around before you finally get stuck in and sew them together.

Join The Hexies

 The most secure and easiest way to attach them together is to use a simple whip stitch.  Hold both hexies to be attached together, right sides facing, and whip stitch across the top.  Add an extra few stitches at each end to secure the joints, then just move on to the next.

For my first cushion I made hexie flowers (13) hen sewed the flowers together.  For this current one I sewed the hexies in straight lines (14) using hexie strips and then sewed the strips together.  You can pick whatever method suits you best.

My cushions are a standard 16" x 16", so I make the strips long enough to cover the 16" cushion with a little extra for the seams.  Overall looking at the hexie cushions I have made for a 16 x 16 insert, there are approx 12 hexies across and 12 hexies high, therefore 144 hexies in total (this includes the seams).

The sewing together does take a long time and your fingers will be sore!  I do mine in little chunks, they are nice to do as you can take them anywhere and you don't need any fancy equipment or a sewing machine and they quickly come together.  I would recommend using a fine needle and when stitching together use the smallest stitches you can manage (15), only picking up a few threads from each fabric side; this will ensure a neat finish on the other side.

If you have gaps at the edges of your work just cut some hexies in half to fill the gaps.  Remember that you can cut them two different ways (18), look at your gap shape first to decide which way to cut your hexie.

Finishing off the Hexies

Once you are happy with your hexie square, turn over and remove all the papers.  Just scrunch the fabric up a little to get in there and pluck them out.  The papers will get creased, but just flatten and stash them away to use again.

Now iron your work and to be sure that the hexies all stay together I like to add medium weight iron-on interfacing to the back.  It stiffens the fabric and kind of glues all the hexies together for extra stability.

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As I don’t have another 144 mini hexies ready stitched I will show you the remainder of the cushion using the larger hexie front I have just completed ~ same principal.

I will post this tomorrow in a seperate post as poor Blogger will be groaning with all my photos today.

I hope this tutorial made sense, if you have any questions please ask.

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If you are interested in getting a little head start I have popped some starter packs in my folsky shop which come with;

♥ Full colour instructions,

♥ A little hexie needle case,

♥ 6 completed hexies to give you an idea,

♥ Approx 36 fabric squares (7cm x 7cm) enough for one quarter of your cushion,

♥ 150 little paper hexies to make your own 1" hexie cushion (no cutting required).

A good chunk of the work done for you ~ click here!

 

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n.b. when I started making little hexies I got a head start from the lovely Cate of 23rdSpiral (no blog) and I read Melanie's blog with great interest Texas Freckles, which is where I found the links for the hexies.  Pop over and have a look she is an amazing quilter!

p.s. thanks heavens blogger is back and working, I have really missed it ~ it's where my friends live x

~ ♥ Back Tomorrow with part 2 ♥ ~

I'm feeling a bit stitchy...

I'm still in the process of making my Little Hexie Cushion Tutorial, it is taking longer than I thought; I will have it ready this week though.

I thought I would show you some of my other little makes of late, first up is this little needle case.
After making those little cross stitch kits the other week I got the cross stitch bug and made a little needle case for my lovely friend.

I made it up as I went along using colours she likes and I'm quite pleased with it! It didn't take all that long and it's rather sweet.

These would be nice little gifts for people who stitch, or even people who don't for emergency repairs and such. The aida was scrap from another project as were all of the cottons.

I have also been enjoying playing with my wax and have knocked up some sweet little wax melts and a few more candles.


Check out these sweeties, lemon meringue pie hearts and roses :)

 
and little lemon meringue pie, lemon wedges. They smell divine :) 

On a totally unrelated note I have been asked a few times now about my blog name.  I have to admit I had never thought to mention it before now.
You see many years ago I played MMORPG (to normal people that is online games) and I was trying to find an original charachter name that was not already taken. 
Bearing in mind I was drunk, discussions got onto our favourite kids shows and names we could use from there and Andy Pandy got a mention.  
We somehow went off on a tangent and decided that Andy Pandy had a naughty sister who left the Picnic Basket and got a job as a stripper in Trumpton, we called her Kandy Pandy ~ but changed the y's to i's for added sleaze factor; I have used Kandipandi for years now it just stuck.

Fancy sharing why you chose your blog name ~ go on you can't have a worse reason than me?

~ ♥ TTFN ♥ ~

Bargains and Little Green Surprises

Bank Holiday Monday involved a car boot sale where I bagged a couple of lovely bargains.  This was £2.

Isn't that a lovely sentiment ~ We cannot all do great things for the world but we can do small things with great love.  I need to take it to bits and repair a few of the stitches; even though it's rather shabby I like it!

I am another collector of Ladybird Books.  I grabbed these few at the boot sale, the guy selling them was charging 20p each a few weeks ago but he has cottoned on and now they are £1 each.  I was still happy to pay that though and I had to reign in my excitement when I saw the Cinderella Book.

I have been after this for ages, I had this as a girl and used to pour over and over the beautiful frocks, I remember this vividly from being tiny and I wanted that Blue frock soooo badly.

On the way home I popped into the supermarket and bagged me this bouquet for 75p! (the purple ribbon is from a box of chocolates; i'm such a hoarder)

On to the surprises ~ I know I should not be amazed but I am; I grew stuff!

Little butterfly flowers just peeking through the soil:

Just look at the sweet peas on the right, they sprang out of nowhere in a couple of days - they are now in their own little pots. 

Thanks again Gill for getting me inspired to grow x

I have had lots of lovely comments and a few emails about my little hexie cushion.  It's so simple to do and such a good use of the odd scraps of fabric you have lying about that I thought I would do a simple tutorial to show you how it's done.  I'll be back with that one later in the week.

~ ♥ TTFN ♥ ~

Last Day of Freedom, Herons and Cushions

Well, the eleven day wonder break has sadly come to an end, the only thing keeping me afloat is the promise of another Bank Holiday at the end of May!

I did manage to make quite a dint in my list of things to do, I did complete my table, I did plant lots of stuff up and tidy the garden, I did make some cushions.  The only thing I didn't complete was making my Roman Blinds.

Life and work got in the way, I did have to do some work at home this week and had to briefly pop into work which took a little of the shine off my week off. 

I will get these made though, I have had the fabric for months now it's a disgrace!

I did make cushions though, I hunted out my fabric and found a metre or so of Cath Kidston Cotton Duck that I forgot I had bought!  I knocked up a few cushions in different styles using my Cath fabric.

I made a standard cushion with velcro fastening:

An envelope style with double ribbon fastening:

  Standard cushion with middle zip fastening

And lastly my second mini hexie cushion.  On Friday I spend many hours infront of the TV watching the Royal Wedding and I sat and finished sewing these little hexies together by hand.  I started these ages ago and I keep dipping into them.  As these little hexies took such an age to hand sew together, I think I will keep this one, it is indirectly my Royal Wedding Cushion :)

 

I also made the best of my last day off with some Car Booty, I bagged a few bargains, I'll show you later this week.  We finished the day off up the River Coquet, him fishing me sewing on the grass.  

 He didn't catch much, and there was a far better fisherman in attendance all afternoon.

Can you see him in the very middle ~ a magnificent Heron!

Hopefully I will be back soon with photos of Roman Blinds :)

p.s. have to say I'm becoming increasingly vexed at the blogger photo and dodgy spacing shenannigans ~ growl!

p.p.s. Thank you all for your support regarding my little Folksy shop, it's rather scary but quite exciting too, special thanks to Tina, Nic & Laura my first three customers mmwwwahhhhh!

~ ♥ TTFN ♥ ~