Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

I recently joined the most current pillow talk swap on flickr.  We all get to make a beautiful pillow for our secret partner and tease them with pretty pictures while simultaneously being teased with dozens of pictures that just may be for you!  It’s a little intoxicating to see all the beautiful pillows being made in one place.  Pillows are great to make because you use a technique or fabric or quilting style that are all out of the box because you are just making a 20″ or so square.

I can’t tell you who my partner is because it’s a secret. 😉  But I will tell you that I think she should really like this…in fact, she may have even commented on it.  But I’m not saying a word…

What I can tell you is how I made this pillow.  It took a lot of work, but I used some great tools to do it.  Some of you might remember that Accuquilt recently gifted me with a Go! Baby cutter.  And one of the dies that I chose was the Hexagon die.  I chose this die in particular because hexagons can be a bit annoying to cut out…all those sides. 😉   I also had a lovely Kona Solids Charm pack that I was given when I lived in New Orleans as part of the Modern Quilt Guild’s challenge with Kona solids.  I wasn’t able to make anything before I left, but I’ve been planning on something for a while. Regardless, I was quite happy to discover that with careful placement on the Hexagon Die, I was able to quickly cut the whole charm pack into a lovely stack of rainbow hexagons.

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

I wanted to hand sew the hexagons together using the English Paper Piecing Technique. But since I have the accuquilt cutter and will be able to make this size of hexagon easily over and over, I chose to make some plastic templates to wrap my fabric around. With the help of another hexagon template, I was cut enough templates for a charm pack. I believe I ended up with 3.5″ hexagons.

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

Using some lovely Aurifil thread that I was also given (boy I’m a lucky gal!), I made fairly quick work of basting the fabric around the plastic hexagons.

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

My little stack grew and grew!

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

I then played around with the fabrics until I found a layout that I liked. I did end up tossing two green charms and adding in a few other Kona solids to make this work…but that’s just because I’m picky like that. I hand sewed each piece together. Such a small sentence for the most work! lol

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

You might notice that at this point, the hexagons are not square. Hmm…what a concept. That’s what a math major gets you. A keen eye. 😉 So, the next step is to square up the pieced hexagons. You might think that you can just slice up the piece, but you need to be a little more careful to account for the seam allowances.

I lined up the edge of the hexagons so that there is a quarter-inch past the folded finished edge.

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

Then, I use some small scissors to snip some of the basting threads to undo the folded edges adjacent.

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

The adjacent sides could be sliced and diced because of the measurements…20.5″ I believe. I marked a line and cut!

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

You should now have a squared-up, hand-pieced rainbow hexagon design. From here, you can use your favorite technique to turn this into a pillow. I spray-basted some batting onto this piece and then quilted the hexagons with another geometric pattern. Here it is partially quilted so that you can get an idea of how I did this particular design.

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

I was being all fancy-dancy, so I also quilted a pieced backing for the pillow as well as lining the pillow cover and adding a hidden zipper. All of that adds up to one pretty pillow!

Front:

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

Back:

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

Lining and Zipper:

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

This is one rainbow that should have gold at the end!

Hexagon Pillow Tutorial

23 thoughts on “Hexagon Pillow Tutorial”

  1. Wow, that's gorgeous. I love the hidden zipper, too. I want to start making pillows so badly – this just feeds my desire. (I think that makes you an enabler. ;o)

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