Monday, January 31, 2011

Assembling the Blocks

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Time to put the blocks together! Aren't you excited?
This step is where mistake #2 comes in. I'll show you later :)

Take two of your half square triangles


We're going to sew them together like so



Make sure your points match up




I pin the part where the points match up and start sewing from the other end. It's hard to get past that bulk if you start there.




Press it open



Now match it up with the corresponding 6" block



This is where you'll probably notice my mistake.
Since I didn't use the correct half square triangle math, that top piece will most likely not be as wide as your 6" block. That's ok. What I want you to do sew the half square triangles onto the 6" block and when you sew them onto the other side of the 6" block, try to match up those center seams where you sewed the half square triangles together. Does that make sense? I forgot to take a picture.


You're going to sew a half square triangle unit onto both sides of your 6" square.


Except for the 12 blocks you set aside, you will only sew a half square triangle unit onto one side.

 I pressed my blocks toward the 6" square. By doing this I'm going to have some bulk when I sew my blocks together, but if I press toward the half square triangles then I have bulk that way. Use your discretion when you press.


This block actually turned out really neat, I didn't have to re-square it

This one, not so much




This is the part where I trimmed my blocks. Just trim them all the way around, try not to trim too much. I found when cutting mine that my 6" square ended up at 5 3/4" wide when it was all said and done. If yours are a little bit bigger or smaller that's fine, just try to make sure they all stay the same size. Also, be careful when trimming where the point of the half square triangles are, you don't want to lose too much of your point when they get sewn together.

See, I just cut slivers off of mine


Get all of your blocks ready, next week we lay them out!


1 comments:

Pieces to Love said...

Yay a new post!

Julie, Where you trimmed your block because of the measuring mis-calculation Make sure you have 1/4" from the tip of your HST to the side of the block, then when they are all sewed together, given you have per 1/4" seams you will have perfect points when you sew your blocks together. I saw that on a quilting show once, Fons and Porter I think. I hope that might help anyone who is confused before they cut too much off.

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