OK, I am finally sitting down and getting this tutorial written before my oldest son comes home from college tomorrow night and I won't get anything done in the quilt realm after he is here for spring break :)
for one quilt top approx 76'' square, you are going to need:
One Sherbet Pips jelly roll (or jelly roll of your choice, or fourty 2 1/2'' x WOF colored strips)
3 3/4 yards of white fabric - cut into approx (53) 2 1/2''x WOF strips (or solid of your choice)
60 degree ruler (I used Creative Grids ruler, I love the non-slip backing dots it has!)
Step one: unroll your jelly roll and keeping them folded, lay out 2 strips at a time on your cutting mat (so you will be cutting through 4 layers). Using your 60 degree ruler, line up the 2'' mark on the top of the strip and the 4 1/2'' mark on the bottom of the strip. Cut on both sides.
Now, flip your ruler over and cut from the other direction:
Continue cutting in this manner until you reach the end of the strip.
I highly recommend you snip off the lower corners of these half hexies to aid in construction.
If you have a directional print, I highly suggest you pair them up in 'top' and 'bottom' hexies so that your print will be going the same direction on each hexie.
Cut (45) of your 2 1/2'' white strips in the same manner reserving 8 for the end.
Pair each half hexie up with a white half hexie and sew sew sew until the cows come home. This is where that little corner nub cut off comes in handy because you can just line it up with the bottom of the other half hexie.
you will have a huge pile of half hexies with white mates that look like this:
Now, you can start sewing them into rows. I worked with one row at a time. Take 10 of these hexie pairs and sew them into a random row.
At this point, I want you do make sure that each end has one and a HALF white half hexies on BOTH ends. Just cut a few of the half hexies in half so you have a straight edge on each end instead of a tapered end. Some of this will be cut off at the end to straighten your edges, so you don't have to be really critical here.
Now, sew your mirror image strip for the bottom half of your hexies.
Now you can do some pressing! Press one strip to one side, and the other strip in the opposite direction. This way, your seams will nestle together and you'll get perfect points! This is the ONLY time when sewing this quilt that you will have to match seams! Pin at each intersection and you will get great points!
Now, you can start with your next strip set. Continue with constructing the strip sets until you run out of your patterned half hexies :)
Now you can start sewing the strip sets together! Obviously, you are NOT going to match the ends of the rows together here. They can be totally random, or you can make sure that the hexies are all centered perfectly in the white spaces they will adjoin. Honestly, I didn't even pin at this step, I just put them together and sewed! Some stayed perfectly centered, and some went off center. I didn't care though as this made it a bit more random than 'perfectly placed' :)
Continue sewing your strip sets together until you have a near complete top! Here is where you can square up that edge (this is why you made sure there was 1 1/2 of the white half hexies at each end). Now take your remaining eight 2 1/2'' white strips and frame the entire quilt top with a white border. Yaaa! Another top done!
Now you can quilt and bind as desired! I haven't gotten around to quilting mine yet, but I plan to do a medium dense stipple to make the seam lines 'disappear' hopefully :)
Have fun! This was one of THE easiest quilts I have put together to date! Loved it and want to make another!
