Tutorial Tuesday- hexagons!

Tutorial Tuesday!

Hexagons (Ahhhh’s)

If you follow my blog, you’ll know my latest quilting obsession : Ahhhh’s

So this is for you Tonya! 🙂

(someone in the group sent us both the beginning ahhhh blocks in EQ, but as a simple block, so I went a little further)

Tonya has been designing these neat hexagon and sells them on her blog and FB group

So of course I wanted to put them into EQ!

Hexagons are NOT easy, so I’m showing 3 different ways to get these Ahhhh’s into EQ

1. the HARD way (to be able to color with your own fabrics)

First I downloaded the Ahhhh sketches.

Changed the sizes to 6″ wide

( I looked online and also measured my finished Ahhhh’s and they measure 6″ x 5.25″) kind of odd, but that’s how it is

I then opened up a new block/ Patchdraw motif

and under TRACING image tab, I imported the file I wanted to trace, here it’s the first Ahhhh,the pointing star

Now with the LINE tool in the applique TAB I went around one hexagon shape

Then copied and pasted the hexagon 6 times and placed in the right spots

 I traced the triangles and copied it 3 times

  copied another time and flipped it and copied 3 times total

The same with the diamond

I did the same with “conference call”

One trick too is to distort to fit

Again tracing the trapezoid the same way

copying and pasting all 6 times and turning it 60 degree increments too!

 Doing it this HARD way I can now color each segment the way I want
(I didn’t care that they are not 100% perfect, the real templates ARE, this is just for coloring)

Now ADD these to sketchbook

I have the QUILT as a CUSTOM set

Now on layer 1 while holding down SHIFT click and drag, then select the block and change the size to 6″ x 5.25

now you can copy and paste it and will up the quilt, nice and tight!

 Like this (well I didn’t fill out the whole thing, but you get the idea!)

#2 way : Creating “square” blocks

This is an easier way if you want to create the blocks to color with fabrics but don’t have to see the finished quilt as hexagon shapes

Create new Patchdraw block 6″ x 5.25″

Import the image again to trace

In easydraw, trace all the lines, have the snap lines and grid lines a high number like 48 or higher

It may be hard to see on this picture that the lines are all traced. But this way you can color all the blocks anyway you want

Then create a new quilt and have the blocks be 6″ x 5.25″

So if you just want to do these blocks and don’t need to plan the layout directly in EQ, it would a good method 🙂

#3 “cheater” method with completed Ahhhh’s

You know I’ve made lots of Ahhhh’s and I’ve taken pictures of them all

I imported those into photoshop and cropped them down close to the edges and changed the width to 6″ like this picture

Then created a NEW quilt ONEPATCH and made it hexagons (H) with a side of 3″

Then imported my ahhhh pictures as FABRIC

 

Now I couldn’t really tell which kind is which, because it only shows a corner of the picture as a preview and since it’s 6″ wide, all I see is my design wall

But they are EASY to pick and add into the quilt!

you may need the fussy cut tool to center the blocks a bit

I do also have the ahhhh’s colored with plain colors from photoshop

In the same way You can import those as fabric as long as the size is 6″ wide 

(it should be 5.25″ tall then)

So what do you think? which method would you use?