anatomy of a HOW

First of all here are my stitched ornaments from last Monday, was a crazy week and I just finished them this morning. I am not real happy with them ( not real thrilled with the colors I chose)...........am a redworker, have trouble choosing more than one or two colors sometimes, lol!!!  AND.....

several have asked how I put the Hexagon Ornaments of the Week (HOW) together............I'm sorry I didn't write better directions.  Am so absent minded that I just assume people know what I meant, forgetting there are other ways to put them together or that there are beginners that need explanation, I am sorry.  Sooo here is how I've been putting together the ornaments lately.

This is where I start. So if you want to keep a nice copy print 2 copies. I cut the pattern apart. 

I cut from thick stiff interfacing for ornament A- 2 of the biggest templates and one of the smaller one, and the same for ornament B, two large, one small.  From FABRIC cut a piece bigger than each of  the templates too, the two smaller ones for each ornament are in your stitch background fabric and the big ones in contrasting fabrics.  The first one I did only has fabric on the back, the second one has 2 pieces of felt for the large templates.   I stitched the felt back before attaching to the front.  I like two sided ornaments and since then I have either added stitching on the back or adding other surprise backs for the people who win my giveaway (are you registered? you have until the Sunday after Dawn Hay's last Frosty Flake posts)  

Here is what I cut for ornament A along with my pieces from last week.

I usually attach the front stitching with some lazy daisy stitches but this week since the stitching intentionally fell off the edges here I just attached the front to the back hiding the stitches between the layers.

Here is the front and one of Dawn's frosty flake outlines for the back.

Then you have to stitch the back to the front like I did on the reindeer one from a couple of weeks ago below, here's the back & front.  (same fabric bad lighting)

match up edges and stitch together like this below.

 

showed the red because the brown and blue was too dark to see on the photo.

BUT WAIT....................

Carrie P from A Passion for Applique cut her fabric larger than I did so it would cover more of the template and appliqued her bird on the the side with the fabric folds, eliminating the need for extra back piece fabric and interfacing.  Look at the beautiful job she did stitching below.  Now if you look close she has her folds to the front and it looks GREAT.  SO yet another way to finish them, Thank you Carrie.  Go visit Carrie and see all the beautiful thing she does.

So I tried on on my ornament B this week

It worked fine,  but wish I had had yardage of this fabric for the back then I could have fussy cut it to get the snowflake in center, but it was a charm square, so it is off center some. added a few stitches on back for interest before I attached front stitching hexie.

will attach a PDF FORM  of tutorial in the morning with my next Monday Mystery HOW #7

Don't forget if you're a quilter with a blog and want to be part of a REALLY BIG giveaway go to Debi's Fall into Fall blog, CLICK on my sidebar for a link.  She's looking for 200 bloggers to participate and thousands to enter?