Wednesday, February 12, 2014

WIP Wednesday!

Ha, I know there are some bloggers out there who actually do this every Wednesday, but it is not my intent to copy them.  I just started typing WIP...and then realized what day it is.  Okay, Linda, WIP means Work In Progress.

So I've been thinking, what, besides Internet and Scrabble and Scramble with my brother online, (oh, and an excellent book my next-door neighbour loaned me that had me reading 100 pages within the first day!! And The Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini, love all his books) has been hindering my progress on this rather small (36 1/2" square) quilt using the 5" charm squares. . .

So here is the painstaking process I've been going through.  It made me realize how much patience is needed, in quilting, well, in ALL forms of art, be they music, painting, figure-skating.  Sidenote: I read that US Dance Pair Meryl Davis and Charlie White spent 3 years, THREE YEARS working on one move that they finally used in the Olympics the other night.

Here is the process for creating the flying geese in this little quilt.  And note that I haven't even taken into consideration all the cutting required first!
1.  Draw a diagonal line on the back of the 2 3/8" squares.


2. Sew two of these onto the 4 1/4" square, sewing 1/4" seam on either side of the drawn line.

3. Cut apart on the drawn line.

4. Press the seams towards the smaller cream squares.

5.  Place another square on the opposing corner. Sew again 1/4' on either side of the drawn line.


6. Cut apart on the drawn line.  You can see the uncut one below the cut apart one.  This method yields 4 flying geese units per 4 1/4" square with no waste.  I blogged about it a post or two ago about my Self Round Robin, and this little quilt uses the same method! Love it.

7.  Press the resulting cream half square open.  Here you see the bottom unit cut apart, and the top units pressed open.  This picture reminds me of my wooden mosaics I loved to play with as a child!

8.  And, we're not done yet! These little babies need to be trimmed to 2X3 1/2", which will also get rid of the dog ears in the corners and top middle.

I have 72 flying geese to make for this little quilt.  Yep.  So with 3 triangles per unit, I will have 216 triangles in just the flying geese.  There are 4 triangles in each 3 1/2" square, and there are 45 squares in the quilt, so...180 more triangles there!  I have those all done.  Here is a cool trick for pressing them that eliminates a bulky bump in the middle where all the seams intersect:

You open the seam 2 or 3 stitches, which allows all the seams to magically twirl open and lie flat!  Cool!  I saw this once years ago on "Simply Quilts" but had forgotten about it.  It is so worth buying books, as I always pick up little tips or tricks.  This book has not disappointed yet; I can see myself making more (I want to make them ALL!).  It's Another Bite of Schnibbles by Carrie Nelson.
All of these had to be trimmed at each step: first the 1/2 square unit down to 4", and then after you sewed two of them together to get the above 1/4 square triangle unit, you trim again to 3 1/2"!  Phew!

Well, this is actually a post with relatively few words and lots of pictures!  I was just saying to my mum the other night that sometimes I have good intentions to write little, but usually get carried away!

The thunderstorm we've been experiencing this afternoon is coming back, or else another one is looming.  Time to make supper anyhow, before any potential power outage!  Nothing like what they are experiencing in Georgia and South Carolina today though with the snow and ice that they are ill-equipped to deal with.  At least this time, it sounds like people are prepared and staying home.

Hope to have a finish within a day or two, well the top for sure by tomorrow!

1 comment:

  1. Lol other readers must think jeez that Linda chick duuu-umb! LOL. Thanks for the explanations! methinks this was a mathematical blog, so in keeping with high school math class I tuned out. LOL just kidding. But wow that's a lot of numbers and WORK!! I remember Mosaics!

    I don't want to read shorter posts, I'm glad you muse aloud :)

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