I Spy Quilt - Cutting hexagon hints

Last week in one of my blogs I shared one hint about making cutting hexagons simpler. The idea was to use a very small cutting mat, and turn the entire mat with the fabric and template rather than just turning the fabric and template. If you can't find a small cutting mat at the Dollar Store, maybe somebody that you know has an old cutting mat that can be cut up into squares. The mat that I have is 8" x 10". It's perfect for cutting out these I spy blocks. My template/blocks have 2" finished sides.
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So today I made over a hundred decisions like this. Placing my hexagon template on my 5" patches to see what would be the best way to cut out the hex patch.


I've determined that my I Spy Quilt will need 99 hexagons. So I started cutting out from my kit that I got as a result of the swap last week.


As I was cutting, I ran into a number of my charms that really didn't suit cutting out into a hexagon, so I set them aside. I soon realized that I might be a little short of charms. So, as I was cutting and thinking of my dilemma, I came up with a way to save some charms.


On the side of a hexagon quilt, there will be hexagons that are cut off to square up two sides of the quilt. You can see what I mean here on this table runner I did recently. I've drawn yellow circles to show these side hexagons.



So for my I spy, here's what I did to save a few patches. I picked out charms that have a small print, or all over design.

I cut out patches that are more than 1/2 the hexagon size but less than 2/3 of the size. I can get two out of a 5" charm square.

There, after I decide the color of my background triangles, I'll be ready for my I Spy class/workday that is scheduled for Sept. 13th.