Orca Bay, Part 7!

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We are SO CLOSE to having this together --- can you feel it?  It’s all starting to come now that we’ve got the Ohio Stars from Part 6 assembled!

I’ve heard from so many that the Ohio Star is their favorite block.  It’s one of mine too, and I love playing with all the different ways you can color the block to make it look different.  It was fun doing the positive/negative thing with the block colors by rotating the hour glass units, wasn’t it?

And to keep the fun building --- and the excitement going --- I have news for you!  We’ve got part 7 today, and just for a surprise --- I’m releasing part 8, our Conclusion – on NEW YEARS DAY!  So you will want to come back on Sunday, Jan 1, 2012 to see how it all comes together!

There is just no putting it off…we need this revealed! And I know many who are home for New Years who would like to continue to sew – so let’s do it, shall we?

In Part 7 we are going to turn our Red String Triangles from Part 4 and our Wing Triangle units from Part 5 into giant pieced flying geese--

Did you guess these fit this way?

Line up the diagonal edge of the black wing triangle unit along the right side of the red string triangle.  If your dog ear is clipped on the black triangle as mine is, you’ll notice that it looks short, but it is not.  By the time it is sewn, you won’t see it at all, and that red dog ear will be trimmed off when we are done.

Sew a black triangle unit to the right side of 127 red string triangles.  You will have one Red String Triangle left over. Press seam out toward the black triangles.

Position a black wing triangle unit on the opposite side, lining them up, and stitch.  Complete all 127 string goose units. Press seam out toward the black string triangles.  Ooohhh! I see those Maryland Crabs making eyes at me..LOL! LOVE IT!

These units will measure 3-1/2” X 6-1/2”.  Trim dog ears. 

If you are a “Squarer-Upper”  ((Actually, Squarer-Downer is more like it!)) There is something I want to caution you about.  Be CAREFUL when trimming that you don’t trim so much that you lose your seam allowances around those neutral triangles.  You need those to join the units together into the quilt…I’ve seen people who square down with reckless abandon, and then when they join their blocks, Yes, the OUTSIDE dimensions might be correct mathematically, but there is no WAY they can get points to line up because they chopped them off.

I would rather pin carefully, match points, and adjust my seam allowance instead of just whacking everything off to be some “perfect” size --- that makes the units impossible to stitch together “perfectly.”  Get my drift?

If the seams are so OFF that your unit is wonky….instead of trimming everything beyond recognition--- FIX. YOUR. SEAM!

Oh – and those black Wing Triangle units we made in Part 5? Yes..those ones that you still have 96 of?  I have a confession to make.  I forgot ONE thing – I need you to make 4 more.  Yes – just four. It won’t take you long!  After the step above, you still need 100.

You can cut them out and even assemble them as leaders & enders while we work on this next part if you want. Just bring the total of wing triangles left to 100.




This next step involves cutting into those neutrals again!  I used my Easy Angle Ruler and 3-1/2” strips to cut the 100 neutral triangles needed for this step.

If you are cutting with regular rotary cutting methods, you are going to need to cut 50 3-7/8” Squares, and slice them once from corner to corner on the diagonal to give you the 100 triangles needed for this next step.

Match a Wing Triangle unit with each of the 100 half square triangles you cut above.  Stitch them with right sides together and press toward the neutral triangle.  I always press the path of least resistance for patchwork that lays flatter, even if the unit I am pressing toward is the lighter of the two.  If you have any shadowing going on, grade your seams by trimming your black part of the seam allowance less than 1/4”.  This helps it not to show through the front of your work.

These units will measure 3-1/2" at this point and finish at 3" in the quilt.

Got 100 of these?  Okay…now make TWO of these:

These look the same as our Hourglass units in Part 1, but they are BIGGER.  These hour glass units measure 3-1/2” and will finish at 3” in the quilt.

To make these units I used 2” strips and the 2” line on my Companion Angle Ruler. I cut 4  matched pairs, two pairs from each strip set –so I’d have two blocks with 4 different fabrics each.  It didn’t matter if they have the same fabrics between the two of them, just not all the same in each block.

If you don’t have the Companion Angle Ruler, Layer a 4-1/4” neutral square with a 4-1/4” black square with right sides together.  Slice twice with an X from corner to corner to yield 4 pairs.  The only thing is…you are going to have to do this TWICE…with another set of squares, to give you the variety you need to have each hourglass unit from 4 different fabrics.  So you’ll have two spares --- you’ll find a place for them somewhere!

Sew the 4 pairs all facing the same direction, with the light on the top.  Be consistent or they won’t fit together when you open them up to press!  See my cheddar bowties as my leader/ender at the top?  MY BASKET IS FILLING!!

Press these pairs toward the dark triangle, and match pairs – sewing them into 2 hour glass units as shown above.

Come back on SUNDAY, JAN 1st for our big REVEAL party!