Thursday, April 15, 2010

Baby Quilt Progress

Here is what I meant in the last post by double sewing the diagonal seams. When the block units are sewn, usually one would cut 1/4" away from the seam and throw away the extra (yikes!). I simply sew another seam before cutting so that I have an extra (very small) half square triangle set. I am trimming them down to 1-3/4" square after ironing, and they will make some very cute little pinwheels. I think I'm going to make a third baby quilt from all the pinwheels. No sense throwing them away, right?

I use my presser foot as a guide, sewing a scant amount away from the left edge of the foot. No, this is not the standard 1/4" seam allowance, but it is sufficient.
Here I am showing the measurement of the seam before cutting. You can see that ideally it would be 1/2", yielding a 1/4" seam on both sides. This slightly smaller measurement has never been a problem in the past. I just might get one of these out of all my small meant-to-be-discards.

Here is my small pile of double sewn units ready to be cut and ironed.


Last, but not least, is the progress on this top so far. My children were doing part of their yearly achievement tests this morning, so I sewed while they were racking their brains for the correct answers. I know they are going to do just swimmingly like every other year!

You can see the red setting triangles in the picture here. They bring out the red in the fabrics. There are ten different batik fabrics in the blocks. This is about half of the quilt. The outer border will be PURPLE!!

~Joan



3 comments:

MARCIE said...

This pattern is so darling- even in batiks! Ha ha! I love the setting too.

Kerri said...

Joan,

I love that little pinwheel quilt! You can whip up the best block settings in a snap. I want to do the spools, braid, and now this one, oh heavens.

Kerri said...

Hi Joan,

I posted a note to you on my blog, but wanted to make sure I could thank you for the tip on my snowball block corner matches! I checked out the book instructions and lo and behold it said press to center and then press to the corner on the alternating half snowballs. It was even in bold print. Whoever told me to press to the dark must have made a big impression, since I thought it was breaking some supreme law to press to the white. I cringe a little sometimes that I homeschooled my three boys and still haven't learned to read directions myself! Take care and God Bless.