Hexagon Alphabet

I'm starting a new round of (hopefully) interesting blocks. All of them letters of the alphabet, all of them made with hexagons, all of them fully Inklingoable.

The picture here shows my first mock-up on the designwall, with all 26 letters of the (English) alphabet.

For the next 26 weeks, you'll get a new letter each week, until you have the full (English) alphabet, and can write anything you want ... provided you want to write anything at all.

In the 27th week, I will post directions on filler blocks, for the bottom row, and in the 28th week, I'll show and tell you how to make your alphabet-blocks into an alphabet sampler quilt-top.

The Hexagon alphabet is based on two quilts from the Red and White exhibition (and iPad app) that was in New York for one week in March 2011. Two of those quilts used letters made with hexagons. Not all letters were present in those two quilts, so the remainder has been invented by me, and some letters have been emended by me.

I have chosen to make each letter into a rectangle. This is because not all letters are the same width, and some have quarter-hexagons in two corners, some in all four, and if you want to write an actual sentence (or name) with these letters, they need to have about the same space between them to be legible. The way I've made the letters, there is one half-hexagon (other half) of space from the letter itself to the edge of the (individual letter) block, which equals one full hexagon between letters. To make this work for words, add a futher two hexagon-width between words.

Please note, that there are no fabric-requirements given on any of these blocks. That is because they can be made with any size hexagon ! Do consider size, though. The difference in size, depending on which size hexagon you use, is huge :

Height of blocks, if using
0.25" hexagons : 2.25"
0.5" hexagons : 4.5"
0.75" hexagons : 6.75"
1" hexagons : 9"
1.25" hexagons : 11.25"
1.5" hexagons : 13.5"
2" hexagons : 18"
3" hexagons : 27"

The 0.75" and 1.5" hexagons are both in collection #3 (CD and book, seriously good value for your money), the rest are available in individual, downloadable collections. Check out the Inklingo Hexagon Page.

I've made a 'general printing table' for you to print out, and fill in with the size hexagon you want to make (link below). The amounts printed of each shape, will give you a complete, 26-letters, English Alphabet, and two filler-blocks for the bottom row.
When you have done your calculations as to how much fabric you need to print all the shapes involved in the right numbers, please add enough background-fabric to enable you to straighten out the individual rows (making them all same length), and enough of both background and letter-fabric to make one or more borders, and a binding.
Your guess as to how much is as good as mine here, and all depends on what size hexagon you choose to use. I have worked my letters in the 0.5" hexagon size, and started out with about 2.5 yards of each fabric. So far, there is still loads to spare.

General Printing Table here.