One of my main goals for 2020 was to finish my half-hexie quilt top that I started in Fall of 2019 and provide a free tutorial for all of you lovely people! I found myself consistently surprised at how easy this quilt came together, and I'm confident a skilled beginner could tackle it as well! If you're interested in making your own, keep reading! Ice Cream Bowl Quilt Tutorial I'm fondly referring to this quilt as my "Ice Cream Bowl" quilt. Mainly because the half-hexagons look like bowls, and also because of those amazing ice cream fabric prints from Ruby Star Society that I threw in the fat quarter bundle for this quilt. I used a mix of Cotton & Steel, Ruby Star Society, Rifle Paper Co. and Riley Blake Designs fabrics. What you'll need: Hex N More Ruler (or something similar that can cut 8 ½" half-hexagon shapes) 16 fat quarters of quilting cotton for top 4 ½ yards quilting cotton for backing ½ yard quilting cotton for binding Thread, sewing machine, iron, etc. (basic quilting supplies) Finished Size: 51" x 62" Cutting the fabric: Iron all fat quarters for your quilt top and get them nice and flat. *If you like to starch, do so before cutting. Stack fat quarters (2 to 4 at a time) and use a 45mm or 60mm rotary cutter to cut 4 ½ inches x WOF strips from each stack. The cutting process will go quicker this way. Use your Hex n More Ruler to cut as many 8 ½" Half Hexagons from the strips as you can. You need 128 Half hexagons for this quilt. You'll need to flip the ruler for each cut, butting the short sides of the hexagon edges against one another to maximize the amount of half hexagons you can get from each strip. Below is a real life visual if the diagram is confusing for you. Shown here: OLFA True Blue 45mm rotary cutter and Jaybird Quilts Hex n More Acrylic Ruler Sewing the Half Hexagons: This part may seem a little intimidating to a beginner, but it's really as simple as sewing a straight seam. All you need to do is know how to angle each hexagon edge before sewing. Your quilt will have 16 rows, with 8 half hexagons in each row. I suggest laying out each row before sewing. Place one half hexagon down with right sides facing up. Put another half hexagon (flipped the opposite direction) along the right edge of the first one and overlap points by ¼" along those edges. Sew along this edge with a ¼" seam. Press all seams to the right for Row 1, to the left for Row 2, and alternate for remaining rows. Repeat for remaining half hexagons in row. *As you can see from the diagram below, the half hexagons are not placed directly ontop of one another at the same angle. It's very important to place them in the correct position before sewing. Sewing Rows: Continue sewing until there are sixteen long rows prepared (8 half hexagons in each row). Once all rows are completed, you'll sew the rows together with a ¼" seam. If you pressed the half hexagons correctly, your rows should "nest" together at the seams to create nice matching points as shown below. When the quilt top is finished and all rows are sewn together, trim the long edges of the quilt (right and left sides) so that they are flush and straight. Mine finished at approx. 51" x 62", which is a nice sized throw. Finishing the Quilt: I chose to long-arm quilt this at a friends house (Thank you, Megan!) and used backing and binding from my stash for my Stash Buster 2020 Challenge. I won't be teaching you how to baste, quilt, and bind your quilt. There are a plethora of of YouTube videos and blog tutorials out there for that and most of us have our own preferred methods. Some work for others that don't really work for me, and vice versa. If you need help with this part don't hesitate to search the internet or ask a local quilt shop or quilting club.