Sunday, December 15, 2013

Summer Mystery - Step 3

A gnome in a garden I walked past this morning:
His coat looked dark orange in real life, but it looks more like red on the computer. With the grass and the neutral pebbles, he looked like our colour scheme.

Yesterday I tried to make half-square triangles Bonnie's way. But they really weren't working. My machine did not like feeding such tiny shapes. Here's what happened to many of the ones I sent through the machine blunt-end first:
The underneath layer got pulled down and scrunched up (left and centre), or the whole thing concertinaed (right). I tried a different foot, and changed the needle position, and tried sending the pieces through point-first. Each change helped a little, but then when I tried to press open the ones which were sewn OK, many of them ended up very distorted. The small pieces and the curved side of my iron were not a good combination. After all the trouble I took, I only had about one in four that were usable. There had to be a better way!

Once I calmed down, I remembered an episode of Simply Quilts from about 15 years ago. In it Nancy Martin taught her method of cutting bias strips and sewing them together, pressing the whole thing, and then cutting the correct size squares as the last step in the process. It had to be worth a try, to eliminate the sewing and ironing as sources of distortion. A bit of googling gave me appropriate measurements, so this morning I started all over again.

Sewing the yellow and orange bias strips together:
Making sure that the same two fabrics are never beside each other twice gives maximum variation in the resulting squares.

And once they are cut:
Perfectly square, exactly the right size! Hooray! I'm much happier about this step now than I was yesterday.

I need to make another set of bias strips to get the 200 squares we need, and then I will sew the pinwheels. But I should get them done by the end of the week.

When Bonnie sets up her Monday link-up for step 3, I'll add the link to this post.

Added later: Here's the link-up!

20 comments:

Joy V said...

Love that you have worked out a way to do these. What I do is place a small post-it note (sticky side) right up to the needle, but not quite, and sew over this. The reason that those pesky bits get caught is the little ridge on a lot of machines, just before the needle and the post-it note makes a smooth path. BTW I also love your colours.

Vireya said...

That could have been worth a try if I had thought of it, Joy.

chris said...

200 squares!!!!! Glad I didn't sign up for that! Going to finish my piece from Jenny's workshop - keep a lookout for it!

Anonymous said...

Sometimes it just seems like the machine and the fabrics won't play nice together. Congrats for coming up with a work-around that let you finish up those HSTs... and what wonderful fabrics you're using!

Lynn said...

Glad you found a solution. I had a few like that too. I changed my sewing machine needle to a smaller size and that seemed to help.

Cherry said...

Some of my HST units were also 'eaten' by my sewing machine. Fortunately, not too many and I had cut extras just in case something happened. You came up with a great solution!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this idea - I was trying to figure out yesterday that it seemed like there should be a way to "pre-sew" and then cut. Will give this a try for sure.

Frances Meredith said...

I had a similar problem in the past, but then got hold of a single hole needle plate. See my post here from last year, to see what I mean. http://fabadashery.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/bonnie-hunters-mystery-qulit-easy.html

Angeliasue said...

Great idea? Would you, please, give us the dimensions of your fabric strips? You've already done all the work! Thanks.

Vireya said...

The strips are cut on the bias, and they are 2" wide. You cut your strips the same width the unfinished squares will end up. I started with 20cm squares, which gave me four strips. If I had made the squares a little bigger, maybe 21cm, I could have used the last corners as well.

Julie in GA said...

I love that method when making lots of HSTs. Way to go!

Elaine said...

Great idea! Mine got gobbled up as well, however I changed my throatplate to a single hole and it stopped. I am a little overwhelmed with the amount-but i am going to plug away. Thanks for stopping by my blog:)

Lee said...

I'm sorry your fabrics and the machine didn't play nice together, but glad you found a solution that worked for you. Mine are almost done and then I'll sliver-trim any problem children.

Quilting By Celia said...

Your technique is also a good one.. I have used it years ago but didn't think about it either until I saw your post now.

Unknown said...

very clever solution - whenever I have pieces with points I use my vintage machines to piece them. That way the points don't get sucked in. Love your colors and all of the flowers!

Art by Rhoda Forbes said...

Love your method for the pinwheels, and lovely colors. Thanks for dropping by my blog .

Angeliasue said...

Thank you! I'll convert the metrics :)

Susie Jensen said...

Thanks I had forgotten about this method and I took a class from Marsha McCloskey when shw used this method.

norma v said...

like like like!

DaniQuilts said...

Beautiful! I love your fabric choices!