Twisted Hexie Tutorial

Today's post is my final vacation post. As you may know, I love to hike in the Adirondack Mts. and when I was asked for this tutorial shortly before I left for the ADK I asked if she was in a hurry because I thought it would be fun to tie it in to my hiking trips. Let me know if you would also like me to post a tutorial without all the "extra" info.

My first hike, on Tuesday, was around Moss Lake.
 I had hexies with me but the weather wasn't promising so I didn't stop to enjoy much of the view.
When I finally found a signal and called my brother, he insisted on telling me how bad the radar looked so I really had to get moving on my 5.5  mile hike.
Luckily I finished about 30 minutes before the torrential rain finally arrived.

I just love how the trees make due with where ever they landed as seedlings.

On Wednesday, I took the chair lift to the top of Mt McCauley in Old Forge, a local ski mountain. Obviously the weather was greatly improved. Still a little chilly but sun can make a world of difference.

To start a twisted hexie I baste one of the half hexies. I use 3 clips to hold the fabric in place
and start basting in the bottom right corner, working counter-clockwise to the bottom left corner. 
I do not baste through the papers but because I use 2" half/hexies, I do catch the fabric with the thread once on each of the sides. It helps to keep the fabric taught and I'm less likely to snag the thread later on.
Tie off/cut the thread after basting this half hexie.

Baste a second half hexie but do NOT tie off the thread.

We are going to start attaching pieces now.
Layer the 2 basted half-hexies as shown above, being careful to line up the ends and hold them in place with a couple clips.
Whip stitch the pieces together along the short side of the first half-hexie
(which is half of the long side of the second half hexie). Do NOT tie off the thread.

When you are finished basting the short side and open them up, it looks like this.
 

Don't get lost in the view as we have more work to do!

Next we will be starting to add the central hexie the half-hexies are twisting around.
One side of the (black) hexie should fit along the remaining half of the (red) half hexie we just whip stitched in place.
You can cut your thread after attaching the central hexie.
Leave the first half-hexie hanging in the wind - it will make finishing the rest of the block easier.

After a few hours of stitching and hiking the trails at the top of the Mt. I decided it was time to hike down the mountain. I could have taken the chair lift back down but I never would have spotted all the butterflies or little streams had I done that.

You might find (on any project) that for some reason your pieces don't seem to be the same length.
Can you see in the photo that the clips are holding this in an "S" shape?
I clipped the ends together to match and then I clipped the center seams to match.
I then gently bent the project between the clips so that the longer piece was on the outside.
When the pieces were matched, with no gaps between the layers, I added clips to hold them in place.
Once you finish whip stitching, no one will ever know that one side was too long!!



On Thursday I climbed Sawyer Mountain. An easy hike but the cold front that came through overnight made for a chilly start and a chilly rest at the top. Translation: I didn't stay long.

After basting the next half-hexie, clip it to the central hexie/short side of the red half-hexie and whipstitch in place.
Tie off the thread.

Repeat basting, clipping to the central unit and whip stitching until all 6 of the half hexies are attached.

On Sunday, after packing up my campsite I always hike up to Bug Lake to scope out the Loon family before heading home.
This is the inlet from 7th to 8th Lake.

This year I finally took the spur over to Eagle's Nest Pond. It was a nice quiet area but not much in the line of seating opportunities. I did manage to finish adding the final 2 half hexies here. I would have been happier had I  which would have been much easier had I remembered to bring more clips with me. I am used to using three but only had 1 with me. I had to fudge some pieces that didn't fit perfectly.

After adding the 6th half-hexie you can see that the first is still hanging in the wind.

Next I finished the hike to Bug Lake, named for all the water bugs which were causing ripples in the water.
I did find the Loon family with 2 little ones but this was one of the two situations where I miss my real camera over my iPhone - the zoom is not as great so I decided not to strain your eyes trying to find the loons in my pictures.

To finish the twisted hexie, fold half-hexie #1 down to meet the center hexie and short side of half-hexie #6.
Whip stitch in place. The center hexie paper can be popped out now or after you have pressed the piece. You will notice that all my paper pieces have a hole punched in them so I can use my little scissors to easily pop out the papers.

Ta Da!!!!!

I hope I have included enough photos for you to understand how I assemble the Twisted Hexies but please feel free to ask questions!!