Orca Bay, Part 5!!

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Can you believe we are half way through December and already up to Part 5 of this mystery? I plot and plan and look forward to this time all year and ZOOOOM ------it’s gone and we are into next year! Someone slow this down just a bit please, I’m not ready for 2012 yet!

This week’s step should be fairly easy for everyone, though there WILL be some cutting involved.

Remember those 350 half square triangle units we did in PART 3?? This week we are going to build on those just a little bit….We’ll be adding some wing triangles to these!

First off, Saska asked when you were going to get to see pictures of my strip drawers! SO..since I had to pull black 2” strips out to cut for this demo –I’ll show you the 2” "colors" strips drawer!

It doesn’t look like much..but I’m so thrilled with how easy this is to get at now…without disturbing anything else in the drawer! See the black ones….3rd baggie from the left in the front row…

Pull out the baggie…and simply unroll the stack, and they are right there for easy access…easy to roll back up and put away too because the drawers are right under the table where I’m working.

When cutting with the Easy Angle ruler, I like to cut through no more than 4 layers at a time – but at least 2. Things wiggle less if there are at least 2 strips. Layer your strips, it doesn’t matter if they are right sides together or not…just layer them and cut. Use the 2” marking on the ruler, and cut 700 ((Yes, 700!!)) individual triangles. If you are cutting through 4 layers at once, it will go fairly quickly.

If you are NOT using the Easy Angle ruler, cut 350 2-3//8” squares, and slice these from corner to corner on the diagonal to yield your 700 wing triangles.

Following placement in the photo above, you are going to sew 1 wing triangle to the right of the light side of the corner half square triangle unit, and one wing triangle to the bottom against the light triangle as well.

**Note** My blacks are scrappy, I'm just showing 2 units here...all the triangles do not match each other ever ---anywhere in my quilt. Random blacks throughout.

You will notice that the notched edges may sometimes end up toward the center, or sometimes at the outer corner of your unit. This matters not. Any which way is fine. It’s just a missing dog ear and you won’t have to worry where that falls, it will be gone in the next seam.

Here are 2 pair with their first wing triangle sewn on, ready to sew the second ones on. Press seams out toward the wing triangles just added.

Here are two of the units done! Only 348 to go! Because there are two seams on the side of each corner half square triangle unit, it should take you approximately twice as long to add the wing triangles as it did to piece the half square triangles that you did in Part 3. Because we are getting closer to Christmas, I’m going to leave it here and show you what to do with them next week!

These units would measure as 3-7/8" triangle units, IF the dog ears are in tact on both ends! Is it missing a dog ear as the ones in my picture? The left side should be 3-1/2" tall. The bottom edge will be 3-7/8" wide, because it has the dog ear intact.

Oh, and any dog ears in the MIDDLE?! CLIP THEM OFF!

Our next clue will go live on Dec 23, the day before Christmas Eve.

Don’t forget to check back on Monday for our Mystery Monday Link-Up! Last Week’s Link-Up had great participation with over 100 people showing their progress on their blogs! AWESOME! Won’t you share your progress with us? And visit those who do? It’s great to see what others are doing as they work with their own scraps in their own colors for this mystery.

And just a suggestion--- If you are starting to feel behind in your own mystery progress, just do what you can through the week on the step that is given that week, and move on to each new step as each step is given so you have an idea of what to do when you have the time to get caught up.

If you need the links to previous Orca Bay Mystery parts and previous Mystery Monday Link-Ups, they can be found in the Orca Bay Mystery Tab at the top of the blog!

Happy Part 5, everyone!