Quiltville Custom Quilting
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Old Tobacco Road!

~A Quiltville Mystery Quilt!!~

Part 2
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© Bonnie K Hunter.

Bustin' of the Bonus Triangles!

Got a box of THESE that you've saved from double-sewing units like THIS?

When working with 2.5" cut squares or larger, I 'double sew' these 3/8" of an inch away from the diagonal seam across the corner square, and when I trim between them, I get OODLES of bonus half square triangles! Because I sew 3/8" away instead of a full 1/2" away....these bonus 1/2 square triangles can be squared up to 2" unfinished! PERFECT! They will play nicely with all my 2" squares and strips in making blocks! The icky part is pressing and squaring them. I tend to put that off. What you see in the bin above is what HAS been pressed and trimmed. It's a good TV project.

This lovely baggied-up mess is all the ones from projects that have NOT been trimmed up yet, though some have been pressed open at least ;c| Some of them have light backgrounds, and I use those the most. Some of them have black backgrounds, or yellow backgrounds from various projects, and I haven't gotten around to trimming them yet. But OH the possibilities! Sometimes a pattern crosses my mind and I just have to dig in and sew, as with Charlotte's Baskets!

I simply had to lay out the half square triangle units with some other pieces and I was ready to sew! Isn't it great?

So, for those of you WITH bonus triangles, see if you have some that are light on one half, and dark on the other! Use them in this project.

For this step you will need 388 (YES! That is THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY EIGHT!) half square triangle units that measure 2" unfinished. They will finish at 1.5".

Now before you hyper-ventilate, remember what you said about Carolina Crossroads, our first mystery. And what you then said about Orange Crush, our second. You said that if you had known what was entailed before hand that you wouldn't have taken on the project. And then you said that you are SO GLAD YOU DID because they turned out to be your favorite quilts ever, and stretched you in ways that you didn't think possible. This is another one of those quilts, and I won't let you down!

If you don't have bonus triangles to use up, this is where you cut some! Layer a light 2" strip and a dark 2" strip with right sides together. Trim one end off even, and then use the Easy Angle Ruler and the 2" markings to cut matched triangle pairs. I like to cut through 4 to 6 layers at a time. Anything more than that, and things can start to shift. You will be amazed how fast you can stack up some pre-matched pairs just ready to chain feed through your machine. My bonus triangle units are ALL DIFFERENT lights and darks as you will see further down the page, but you can also do them color controlled. If you chose one color family for the 4 patches in step one, you can choose another color family here and do them that way. Press the seams towards the darker fabric, and take the time to trim off all those dog-ears while you are at it. What I really love about the Easy Angle is the little nubbed tip on the triangle pairs. It makes it so easy to feed them through the machine one after the other, and only leaves you with ONE dog ear to trim after pressing. Hey, I'm easily made happy by little things! :cD

This is where the fun begins! From your 388 half square triangles, make 96 pinwheels! Note: Be sure ALL the pinwheels spin in the same direction!!

I matched them up so there were 4 of each color per pinwheel,but all my pinwheels are different. I have red, blue, green, black, brown, pink, purple,and gold pinwheels in my quilt! I wanted the pinwheels to be recognizable AS pinwheels, so that is why I matched colors, even though each blade is a different fabric.

You are also going to need 4 half-pinwheels. Study these closely. Be sure the bottom half square triangle is pointing to the right. Cut 4 light 2" wing triangles and 4 dark 2" wing triangles (Each dark wing triangle matches the color of the half square triangle it is paired with.) with the easy angle ruler.

And just so I am covering all the bases: Are you using regular rotary cutting measurements because you don't have an easy angle yet? You can cut the triangles from 2 3/8" squares, and cut them once from corner to corner to get the triangles you need.

And for those of you afraid to put the bias edge on the long side of the triangle...cut squares 3 1/4". Cut them on the diagonal twice with an X. This will put the straight grain on the long outside edge of the triangle. It's up to you. I don't tend to keep 3 3/4" squares on hand, so it would either mean cutting from new yardage, or trimming down pre-cut 3 1/2" squares that I *DO* keep on hand.

While you are sewing all these pinwheels, think of the words to "Windmills of Your Mind" Made popular by Dusty Springfield in 1968. I like this version better than the Sting remake :c)

Click HERE to get to Part 3!

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Old Tobacco Road!

~A Quiltville Mystery Quilt!!~