Sew Easy Triangle Ruler makes hexagons easy to make

by Paul Leger February 17, 2017

written by Paul Leger February 17, 2017

Yesterday we had fun doing a small, fun and quick applique project with easy to use HEATNBOND_® EZ Print Lite 10 pcs – 22 x 28cm (8½” x 11″).

Today I’m going to show you how to do hexagons the easy “Paul” way with the help of this great ruler: SEW EASY^®Triangle Ruler 60° – 8″ x 9¼” (20.3 x 23.5cm). This 60° ruler is also available in size 12″ x 13⅞”.

SEW EASY® Triangle Ruler 60°

Many quilters create wonderful quilts using hexagons. I envy their patience as they cut and baste all those hexagons. Then they have all that hand sewing to do in order to sew them all together. Myself, I’d much rather sit at the machine and let the machine sew!

With this 60° triangle ruler you can make hexagons as little or as big as the ruler will let you.

All you need to use this ruler is a straight edge on your piece of fabric. In my case, I have leftover 3” strips to use.

The Sew Easy Triangle ruler was placed along the straight edge of the fabric with the upper point of the ruler touching the upper edge of the strip.

The ruler placed along the straight edge of the fabric

You’ll need to cut six triangles to make each hexagon. Once the first triangle is cut, rotate the ruler around so that the tip is lined up with the bottom edge of the strip, the top edge of the strip is along the 3″ mark and the cut edge of the first triangle is lined up along one side of the ruler. Keep cutting and flipping the ruler around until you’ve cut all of the required triangles.

Several triangle pieces can be cut from each strip of fabric by flipping the Sew Easy ruler around from top to bottom.

Cutting multiple pieces from one strip of fabric

Once you’ve cut the required number of pieces for your quilt top, place them in rows as shown in the picture below.

the triangles where palced in row with the colors place in a way to form hexagons once sewn.

Placement of triangles to form rows and hexagons

Once you have a layout that you like, sew the triangles together to form each row, then sew the rows to each other. You can see that I placed a half triangle at the end of each row to make the sides straight. Alternatively, you can omit these and just trim the edges straight after sewing all of your triangles together.

triangles cut out of fabric sewn together to make hexagons

Sewing rows together to complete the hexagons

One other feature of this ruler that you’ll like is that there are horizontal markings every ⅛” and the vertical lines help to keep everything lined up. There’s a ¼” line on all 3 sides of the ruler which makes it easy to use if you’re working with stripes or if you need to fussy cut fabrics.

The Sew Easy triangle is placed over on a figure on fabric so that the image can be fussy cut into the triangle shape.

Using the ¼” lines on the edge of the Sew Easy® ruler to fussy cut fabric

Fussy cutting a piece of fabric or using stripes can add fun and visual interest in the making of hexagons as you’ll see in the next photo.

Three different hexagons that were made by fussy cutting fabrics using the Sew Easy ruler to make 60° triangle shapes.

Three hexagons samples using the SEW EASY® Triangle Ruler 60°

Over the past week I’ve had a lot of fun showing you how to use many helpful tools to make some simple projects. I hope you’ll give them a try.

See you again in my next blog!

Happy quilting!

This is part 5 of 5 in this series.
Go back to part 4: Time saving applique method using HeatnBond EZ-Print Lite

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Paul Leger

I took my first quilting course in September 1994 in Barrie, Ontario, near the armed forces base where I was stationed. After moving to Ottawa in 1996, I joined my first guild. I took more courses and began to buy quilting books and lots of fabrics. Quilting has become my passion. I have made over 150 more quilts since then, and have never looked back. I now share my knowledge of quilting by teaching and doing presentations, and blogging!