It's Growing

Not a plant this time, but my latest quilting project.  This is going to be the left side of the Pinwheels and Patches, the part that hangs down from the mattress.  It needs to be four blocks wide and 13 1/2 blocks long.

The pinwheel blocks are coming along a little bit easier than they were, mainly because I'm being incredibly careful making them.

The finished blocks need to be 6" square when sewn into the quilt, so at this point, before they are sewn together they need to be 6 1/2".

I begin by cutting two white 4" squares and two coloured 4" squares.   I draw a pencil line diagonally across the white squares.         4 1/2" is slightly larger than most directions will specify, but I want to have the extra fabric in order to trim the squares precisely later on.

 These squares are sewn together a scant 1/4" on either side of the pencil line.

 They are cut apart and pressed open, with the seam allowance pressed toward the coloured half.

 Each of the four squares are very, very carefully trimmed.  The 45º line on the ruler follows the division between colours.  Any fabric left over is trimmed so that the diagonal seam lines come exactly to the corners and the squares are exactly 3 1/2" each.  This gives me four half square triangles.



These squares are place on top of each other and the seams are "nested" into each other.  The squares are sewed together with a scant 1/4" seam.

These two halves are now placed on top of each other, with the points directly above  and the colours opposite.  I put a pin through the points to keep them directly aligned.






 When this block was turned over a "boo boo" was found.  The seam underneath had wrinkled a bit.  So we take our stitch ripper and take out a few stitches, then sew the block back together with smooth seam allowances.







This seam is pressed halfway on each side, so that on each side the fabric is pressed toward the coloured cloth.

Take the stitch ripper and very carefully pick out the stitches in the seam allowance of the seam you just crossed over.  Fold those allowances back and you get this pretty, tiny pinwheel that allows the seam to lie flat on either side of the centre crossing.

Turn the block over and have a gander:
Not really quite as precise as I had hoped so I'll have to use the 4 foot rule.  Does it show from 4 feet away?  If not, don't redo.

I think this particular block might undergo a bit of revision, but on the whole, the meeting of points in the middle is improving.