Facet Kites are great kites and have a long history. While Facet Kites can be made with almost any number of sides, the most commonly seen Facet Kites are the 6-sided version.
The most common way to make a 6-sided Facet is to use squares of 3 different sizes. The Facet pictured above was made when the largest kite fabric available was 54". The central, white part of the kite is constructed from 3 squares of white fabric, each one 54" on a side. Then it uses 6 squares, 1 of each color, that are 2/3 that size, or 36". Then it has 6 squares that are 1/3 of 54", or 18".
When making a Facet Kite, it is often best consider the frame first. When making a kite, it is necessary to cut fabric and cut sticks. Generally, there is a lot more use for small pieces of fabric than for small pieces of stick. Hence, it is usually a good idea to design the kite to fit the sticks.
I make most of my Facet Kites to fit 36" long wooden dowels. It only takes a little simple math to figure out how big to make the squares. Do you remember A
2 plus B
2 equals C
2?
Remain calm, math is our friend. Let us start with what we know. We know that the Facet Kite will be framed around the outside with 6 sticks that are the same length. A polygon with 6 equal sides is a hexagon. A Facet Kite, when viewed on end, is a Hexagon.
The Facet Kite above is made using four 36" dowels. If we look at it straight through the middle, it would look like this:
A hexagon is comprised of 6 equilateral (equal-sided) triangles. That tells us that the distance from any corner of the kite to the Spine, or center, is the same as the length of each outside stick. If we look at it a different way, each stick will be 1/2 the length of the diagonal of the largest squares in the kite.
If we cut three 36" sticks in half, we get six 18" sticks. The Spine (center stick) will be 36". The only thing we need to know now is, what size square has a 36" diagonal? All we need to do is work the Pythagorean Theorem backwards.
If A
2 plus B
2 equals C
2, and A = B, then A
2 times 2 = C
2. And that means that C
2 divided by 2 = A
2.
We know what C is. (36") If we square it, halve it, and take the root, we know what size square(s) we need.
C=36". 36 squared (multiplied by itself) = 1,296. Divide by 2 = 648. The Square Root of 648 is 25.45. Let's call it 25.5, or 25-1/2". If we cut our squares 25-1/2", and 17", and 8-1/2", we can use 18" sticks for the outside of the kite, and a 36" stick for the middle.
So, we have covered the basic math of a Facet Kite. The intention is to explain that thinking about 6-sided Facet Kites means thinking in in terms of 'thirds'. The thinking behind the Burst Flake was to make it small enough to be easy to handle, and big enough to be seen. Hence the decision to base it, design it, around 24" outside sticks.
Pop quiz: How big do the squares need to be? 24" outside sticks mean a 48" spine. Square it, halve it, take the root. 48*48=2,304. Divide it by 2, it is 1152. Take the root, it is 33.94"
Now remember that we want to think in thirds. We can round 33.94 up to 34, but 34 divided by 3 equals 11.333". I can't measure that well, there aren't thirds of an inch on my ruler, and it just might be bigger that our sticks. Or we can round down to 33, divide by 3, and use 11" for our base measurement.
If your head is already spinning, and you just want to make a good, old-fashioned Facet Kite using Squares and 24" sticks (48" for the Spine), you need 6 squares at 11", 6 squares at 22", and 3 squares at 33". Have fun.
Now that we are thoroughly schooled in Squares for Facet Kites, there are no squares in the Burst Facet.
Notice that the blue is all outside of the white, and the white is all outside of the red. This cannot be done by sewing squares together. But, we will base all of our panels for this kite on a 33" square.
Template for Panel One - The Center Panel: Start with a 33" square. Don't worry about, or even include, any hem allowances. We want the kite to be a little tight on the sticks when finished.
Measure from top left towards top right, along the top edge 11" towards the corner. Draw a light line between those marks. Then measure away from the line you just drew, by the width of your favorite seam allowance, and add another line. My allowance is 3/8". That way I can use the edge of my Presser Foot as a guide for the seam. Your mileage will vary.
Now do the same thing on the other side of the diagonal.
MAKE SURE that you have included your seam allowances, and then cut along the outside lines.
Congrats. That is the center panel.
Now comes the REAL problem child, the Mid-Sized Panel, or the White that is in the Burst Facet pictured. This one might be a little hard to wrap your brain around.
What I did was to use the Center Panel Template, on a separate piece of template material (posterboard), and extend the top horizontal line to the right, and the right vertical line towards the top.
Warning - here's the deal: Seam allowances must be added to the template along its 2 longest lines. If you decided to just use the leftover from the 33" square, you will need to add a strip of template material (posterboard) the width of your Seam Allowance along the longest line of the Mid-Panel.
I preferred to draw the template to the size of the panel when finished, and then use a quilting ruler to add on the Seam Allowances, on a single piece of template material (posterboard).
The last panel is really easy. It is just a Right Triangle, a corner of the square, with the Seam Allowance added to the longest side. That is the good news. The bad news is that there are 3 of these in each corner of the kite, and 2 of these on each side. Do the math and that means there are 30 of these required to make the kite.
Assembly: Normally, when we make a Facet Kite using squares, we do all our hemming first, and then sew the squares together to make the kite. We will do the same thing with the panels for the Burst Flake. All the SHORT edges get hemmed. That means that the Center Panels have 4 hemmed edges, and all the other Panels have 2 hemmed edges. I am anal. I mark for a 1/4" hem and fold, crease, and sew the hem.
Tab Stock: Anyone who has ever attended any of my workshops has left with full knowledge and appreciation of Tab Stock. Tack Stock is merely 1" strips of Ripstop, folded in thirds, and sewn to give thin, light, 3/8" wide flat strips to use like webbing in places on the kite.
I use 2" long pieces of Tab Stock along the sides and in the corners of my Facet Kites, and 3" long pieces of Tab Stock for the ends of the Spine.
Below is a pic to give the basic idea of how the panels eventually form squares. The order of assembly is very different. DO NOT ASSEMBLE A SQUARE LIKE THIS!
Step 1: Assuming all hemming of all short sides has been done, the first order of business is to add the Mid-Panels to the Center Panels. Let us take another look at the Burst Flake:
Notice that each red plane, or panel, or flare, has 3 white panels attached to it. That is our first step.
Take a (red) Center Panel, lay it out, good side up (hem side down), and stack 3 Mid Panels on one side. Temporarily attach them using your favorite mating tool, (Hot Tack, Masking Tape,
Smurf Snot, or Seamstick) and sew them on. Doe the same on the other side.
When complete, you should have an assembly that looks like the one below, 1 Center Panel with 3 Mid-Panels sewn to each side.
If you are anal like me, you will have seamed in the same direction as the hem, meaning that the 'good' side of the seam is the same as the 'good side of the hem.
Do that again for the other 2 Center Panels and the remaining 12 Mid-Panels.
The next step is to sew these Center Panel/Mid-Panel assemblies together. Lay one assembly on the table as above. Draw a light line from corner to corner down the center of the Center (red) Panel. Measure away from that line 1/4" on either side, to make a sleeve that
is 1/2" wide. NOTE: Whenever making a sleeve for a stick, a very good
fit is to make the sleeve twice as wide as the diameter of the stick. We are using 1/4" diameter dowels, so we need a 1/2" sleeve.
After the lines are marked, stack the 3 Center Panel/Mid-Panel assemblies, with the one that has the Sleeve marks on the top. Stack them up so that they are all aligned. I put the good side out on the top and bottom assemblies. The middle doesn't really matter. The corners of the Center Panels should all line up, all match. The stack of Center Panel/Mid-Panel assemblies should look like the picture above.
I like to Hot Tack down the center line to keep them together for sewing. Before sewing, insert a 3" piece of Tab Stock into each end of the
sleeve. We want the stitching of the sleeve to sew the Tab in place as
well.
When you are happy with the alignment and the tab stock placement, sew the sleeve, sewing all 3 Center Panel/Mid-Panel assemblies together at the sleeve,
You might want to take another look at the Burst Flake while you try to wrap your head around sewing on the (blue) Outside Triangles.
Notice that there are 3 (blue) triangles in each corner, and 2 on each side. Each set of 3 Triangles gets sewn to ONE layer, panel, plane, flare on the Mid-Panel (white). But, each PAIR of Triangles gets sewn to a PAIR of panels, or planes, or flares.
A concept, a way to think about this. READ THIS ALL THE WAY THROUGH BEFORE DOING ANY SEWING! The simplest way to approach this is to isolate one layer of the white, and sew 3 Triangles to it. When the sewing is complete, lay it out on the table with the blue triangles to your right. Put a piece of tape on the upper area of the red to use as a landmark, a reminder of which way is up, as you sew the rest.
Now take the blue that was just sewn, lift it and turn it to the left as you would turn a page in a book. Isolate the next 2 layers of Mid-Panel (white), and sew a pair of triangles to them.
Again, lay it out, turn the pair of triangles just sewn to the left like a page in a book, and isolate the next single layer of Mid-Panel (white). Sew 3 Triangles to it.
