Orca Bay, Part 3!

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I was so encouraged to read how many of you loved the small string units in Part 2! I too love the 3” finished string blocks, they are so cute, fun and versatile! I’m sure you will find lots of ways to use cuties like this in your future projects.

They even make a great border sewn in zig-zag fashion --- really, the possibilities are endless!

And speaking of ENDLESS --- Here we go!

Your next step is back to the black and neutrals! Remember, my neutrals DO have colors on them, as you can see --- just the background of the fabric is white/cream/beige.

This time we are working with 2” strips, and the Easy Angle ruler. We used the Companion Angle ruler in Part 1, for Quarter Square Triangles. This time we are making Half Square Triangle units that measure 2” when the two triangles are sewn together, and they will finish at 1.5” in the quilt. You can use ANY triangle method that gives you the 1.5” finished correct size.

If you haven’t used the Easy Angle before, there is an EASY ((What else?!?)) Tutorial found HERE.

For me? I love this Easy Angle…because it works with the sizes of strips I already keep on hand. I dug into my colored 2” strip bin and pulled all the blacks. I pulled out my 2” neutral strip bin and pulled whites, creams and beiges --- not going all the way to tan, but keeping things on the lighter spectrum of neutral.

Where I was short, I dug into my FQs and cut more…and a few extra for re-stocking the strip bins.

My blacks AND my neutrals all have prints on them --- there are some white-on-whites thrown in there, but the mix isn’t over powered by them.

Place a black strip and a neutral strip with right sides together. Using the 2” marking on the ruler, cut 350 matched triangle pairs. ((Each cut gives you one pair, a black triangle and a neutral triangle))

Sew the 350 pairs into 350 half-square triangle units, and press toward the black triangle. Trim the one remaining dog ear.

Don’t you love my Easy Angle ruler? This is what happens when you rulers are in your checked luggage in a zip lock bag that includes a ball point pen and it explodes during the flight and this is what you find! Oh well, there is no doubt that this is MY ruler! It’s been branded!

I also like to work from short strips for more variety. If you’ve got a width-of-fabric strip…cut it in half and match each half to something else. All of my pairing up is done in the cutting process, so I don’t have to sit at the machine and match this triangle to that one ---they are ready to sew.

On our Quiltvillechat list, Subee gave a great hint on how she likes to prep her pairs of strips before cutting. She places them both right sides together on the ironing board and presses them with a bit of spray starch BEFORE cutting. They kind of adhere to each other this way and the extra stability of the starch makes them easy to pick up each pair and feed it through the machine.

Here’s a stack of them by my machine at home just waiting to be sewn….this will give you an idea of what I used in my neutral selections!

I took my machine, my Sew Ezi Table, and my cut triangles with me when I went to Tennessee --- and I sewed in the hotel room! Just give me an NCIS marathon and I’m a happy camper!

If you want to more about my favorite seam guide, click HERE!

***NOTE*** PLEASE sew a couple, press a couple, and measure to be sure they are coming out the right size. I know I mentioned this in Step 1 --- I took paragraphs to explain why and how things can get off, and how important it is that things are the right size.

An email exchange this week reconfirmed to me WHY this is so important. A sweet Quilter just went blindly sewing along until she had more than half of her hourglass units sewn, only to find they were all 1/4” too small. Another sweet quilter told her that she could just trim EVERYTHING down to match that size later.

This is untrue! First off, if you go trimming everything down, you can lose all your points on future units and things won’t look right. Maybe things WON’T fit together.

What good does it do to sew 1/2 square triangles BIG –trim them all down so they are right…only to sew them to the next unit with the same wrong seam you have always sewn with? Things still won’t match and your blocks won’t come out the right size.

The sew big, trim down thing doesn’t always work because you never really learn just where your 1/4” seam is supposed to be. And maybe the problem isn’t with your sewing at all, it could be your cutting.

Do NOT trust any foot that has a 1/4” guide on it! TEST IT! It is too easy to overshoot your 1/4” with that guide.

So PLEASE – sew a couple samples and measure your samples. Find out what YOU need to do to fix the problem in size if there is one. Check both the seam AND the cutting. Make adjustments where necessary. Hone your skills! You’ll be a much happier quilter if you do.

Whatta mess of chain piecing to iron! I like to “chain iron” too….I cut the chain piecing to ironing-board-lengths, press, press, press while they are chained together, and then come through with my scissors and clip them apart on top of the ironing board, and remove that one remaining dog ear at the same time. Snip to separate, Snip to de-dog ear!

If 350 of these seems like a lot? It’s only a bit over HALF of what you did with the small triangles for Roll Roll Cotton Boll!

Be sure to come back on Monday for our Mystery Monday Link-up, Part 3! If you are just joining us – previous clues AND previous Link-Ups are found HERE in the Orca Bay Mystery Tab at the top of the blog. Lots of other tabs with tons of good stuff up there too, be sure to check them out!