Another pinwheels tutorial ......

I am making more pinwheels..... this time from these lovely Wiscasset layer cake blocks I received from Marina who had some extra pieces and sent them on when she say my Topsy Turvy quilt blocks...

I am matching it with a cream on cream floral backing fabric

to make a backing for this quilt seen previously HERE with my uncooperative model

I am doing some of the pinwheels as shown in the charm pack pinwheel table runner HERE

When I did that post Tonya from Hillbilly Handiworks suggested another method and that is what I have tried out this morning..... I thought I'd show you.....

of course you will need a snack before starting.... you might like some tea or coffee too.... there are lots of pictures.....

and of course 'we wash our hands' before stroking sewing fabric

Now before we start I do want to tell you about Tonya who is a favourite Hillbilly of mine - she is a natural born teacher and is busy getting together a whole series of quilting tips etc and there are already lots on her blog in easy to find tabs.... I do recommend going by and having a look over HERE ... even if I don't do all her projects I know I am going to learn lots...

Thanks for this idea Tonya......

are you ready to start?

Start with two squares the same size... I am using layer cake 10" squares so I have cut a bundle of my cream into 10" squares (equal numbers of colour to contrast)

now not all 10" squares are created equal so do check your layer cake squares (I have heard this from several sources)

you can see here I need to do a bit of trimming

lay them right sides together - no lines to draw this time..

I am going to sew ALL the way around the perimeter of the square.... like this:-

you can't see the stitching too clearly on the fabric..... but it is sewn all the way around with a 1/4" seam

say good morning to Mr Rotary - he's one of my favourite toy boys....

I am going to cut my 'sewn all around the edge right sides together squares' diagonally..... both ways.... 

like this......

open out the seams and you have 4 blocks of half square triangles....

how easy is that???

of course there are those little tags to trim ....

no waste and perfect squares - you have not had to sew on the bias....

you can see here my two 10" squares have yielded 4 squares 6 3/4" each.....

now to join them for pinwheels......

this time I am sewing on the bias... which can stretch so I prefer to put in a couple of pins to stabilise....

the rows are stitched .....

and now the other way..... seams pushed towards the darker fabric.....

and again pinning to stabilise... especially that middle which you want to meet EXACTLY right....

done.........

I wanted to just show you how I deal with the centre of the back of the pinwheel.....

at this stage it is thick with lots of layers of fabric..... that's 8 points meeting in one place

... I do a little twist so that one edge undoes a few stitches and you can move the fabric to either side.... in this case I am going so the sides face the darker fabric.... can you see how this happens?

I just find it leaves less of a 'bump' in the middle of the block

however if you have back sewn this doesn't happen (because your couple of stitches don't undo)

then I press the block.....

pretty good points???

the pinwheel block has come out about 12 3/4"......

I will trim to 12 1/2... measuring 6 1/4 from the centre out and not edge to edge......

I have mentioned for many points I don't press..... I find the fabric easier to manipulate and make nice points if I leave that to the end....

I do like this little presser thing..... to just ease the fabric....

these are some 4" blocks I am also half square triangling....

yields four 2 1/2" squares.....

will I do pinwheels?

or rows of half square triangles?

or stripes?

oh the possibilities

We are having very unusually cold cloudy miserable weather here in Sunny Queensland

suits me.... I'm going to sew

and read this lovely bunch of magazines I received from Bobby yesterday

and play with that fancy pinking rotary cutter she gave me

wow

I didn't even know they existed!

Thanks Bobby... she is a new blogger so pop round HERE and say Hi..... she does lovely, lovely work and there are nice easy tabs on her blog to look at what she has made...   we did a block swap a little while ago and realised we live close by....

AND we have a long weekend - triple yay

Hope yours is good WONDERFUL