when hexagons don't fit together! (oxymoron)

Hexagons are a tesselating shape right? So they should always fit together right? Wrong!

I found this out the hard way......but it could have been worse so I am thankful and willingly to share my trauma. 

Hexagons do tesselate but I wrongly assumed that meant they would always fit together.

Yes but in reality, it depends on how you sew them together. There are pitfalls, BEWARE!

I prepared over 1000 hexagons and joined them into 150 small rosettes being one hexagon in the middle surrounded by 6 more. (Traditional Grandmother's Garden blocks often have two rows of hexagons around a centre and there are a variety of options for patterns to create when joining them together. I just wanted to use the basic 7 hexagon rosette.)  

This is my small rosette.

This is the arrangement I planned to use. 

So I laid out my 150 blocks in a pleasing colour way to then work out how to sew them together. I was looking for a system to manage this process. I could see a construction pattern -  one small rosette in the centre with 6 rosettes sewn around to create the large rosette, then join two large rosettes together with two filler small rosettes between them.  As long as I carefully labelled and numbered each small rosette, I could stack them all up and work on it as time allowed. Keeping the layout in order to maintain the colourwash effect was my focus.

Right is the large rosette with two filler rosettes that you then add the next large rosette to. 

Fortunately, I only labelled two large rosettes before beginning sewing and left the rest of the quilt laid out. 

So I began sewing. The first one was a bit of a struggle as I figured out how to handle it but the second one went together much more easily. My system was to label the rosettes: Centre 1, 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6 and would join them with 1/1 being where 1 is on a clock then add clockwise from there around the centre small rosette. You can see the labelling system in the photo above right. 

All good? No! It wasn't!

Fortunately, I checked after making the second large rosette. When I laid them back down with the rest of the quilt there was a problem. The first one fitted back into its space but the second did not. How could that be? They are exactly the same shape right? Wrong!

I laid one large rosette on top of the other and they were not the same. That really did my head in! 

Look carefully at the photo on the left. You can see half a pink rosette poking out on the left side.

I am not a mathematical person however I have always been able to work things out. I learned to quilt back in the day when you drafted your own blocks, did your own math and still I don't use patterns. I was gobsmacked! However, my lizard brain knew there was a reason and that if I stopped stressing, it would come to me. 

Later, after wine and chocolate, I went back and looked at the two large rosettes and thought "it must be something to do with the way I sewed the small rosettes around the centre rosette".  So I looked closely. 

Loud crash of the penny dropping!

When you place the centre small rosette with a flat horizonal edge at the top and begin sewing the 1/1 small rosette onto it, you have two choices - the first seam can be along the horizontal top of the hexagon or on the diagonaol side of the hexagon. In my first large rosette the seam is along the horizontal and in my second large rosette the seam is on the diagonal. Different! 

But surely it doesn't matter? Yes, it does! At this stage, the lizard brain stepped in and I instinctively turned one of my large rosettes over and voila! they fitted on top of each other. Mirror image. 

Photo left is upside down rosette sitting on the other rosette. Mirror image of each other.

I had  inadvertently created two mirror image blocks. They can be sewn together by adding filler hexagons but that would mess up my design and colour layout. 

Half a day of reverse sewing of my second large rosette followed - longer than it takes to hand sew them together initially - then back together again with the first seam between the Centre and 1/1 being along the top horizontal edge of the hexagon. Double check! Triple check!!

My large rosettes now fit together as I had envisaged with two small rosettes between each one.

However, I may have aged 10 years. 

I think the simple version of this explanation is that the small rosette can be orientated in two ways and you have to be consistent as you piece the quilt. 

And when you join them you need to be consistent in where you begin and the order of seams.