Easy Street, Part 3!

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Are you still hanging in there with us?  I hope so!

Last week’s flying geese episode was frustrating for many, especially newbies – and I received emails saying “these aren’t turning out right so I am going to quit.”  DO NOT QUIT!  There is always more than one way to do any given unit – you just need to find the right one for you.  Search out and try a different method.  These are very standard units, and a simple search of the net will provide you with many different alternatives.

What are we working on today?

These!!

64 Shaded 4 patches!

There are many names for this unit ---and it’s such a fun versatile unit!

As with all units in patchwork, there are many ways to do them, and I’m doing them with the Easy Angle Ruler!

To Start:

From purple scraps cut 64 2” corner squares.

Then, just like last week – use your easy angle and 2” strips to cut 64 mirror image pairs or 128 triangles from your black-on-white as wing triangles to your 2” squares.  To have pieces in mirror image, cut triangles with strips placed right sides together.  If you don’t have the Easy Angle Ruler…cut  64 2-3/8” squares on the diagonal to give you the amount of wing triangles needed.

Larger turquoise triangles!

From Turquoise scraps, cut 3 –1/2” strips and use the 3 1/2” line on the ruler to cut 64 large half-square triangles.  If you don’t have the Easy Angle ruler, these can be cut from 3 7/8” squares.  Yes, I used many turquoise fabrics, I’m just showing ONE here.

*NOTE* To give myself the most accurate cut -- I cut with the line ON my fabric -- not off the fabric and next to it -- the "true" measurement would be 1/2 way down the center of that line, so give yourself a couple threads extra and cut with the ruler line ON the fabric with the line at the edge of the fabric.

Unit layout!

 

Just as with the flying geese from last week, you are going to sew the right hand wing triangle to the purple square first –see how the notch makes the triangle the same height as the square?  This is why I cut them in mirror image.  It is really easy to get these triangles to line up right on the square.  Sew on all the right wing triangles first – press them out gently!  Just the tip of the iron on just the seam – do not stretch that bias!

 

Then add the left hand wing triangles to complete the upper half of the unit.  Press.

Each pieced half will be matched with a large turquoise triangle!

The turquoise triangle will be missing one dog ear that the top pieced halves do not, but they will still work.  Put the pieced triangle right sides together with the turqouise triangle, aligning outer edges.

Here is a trick I use….we KNOW that the large turquoise triangle is the size we need it to be….the pieced triangle needs to be the same size as the turquoise one.  This will for SURE tell me if my seam is too wide on the pieced half when assembling , so be sure you do a couple test units first before you sew them all and find that all 64 are too small!  If one of my pieced units is a bit small…I align the OUTER EDGES and let the pieced one fall just a bit short in the seam.  It’s a quick way to fudge.

Sew units together, press toward the turquoise triangle and trim dog ears.  These units will measure 3-1/2” square and finish at 3” in the quilt.

*Note* if there is a small notch at the top corner where the turquoise is missing its dog ear, that's okay -- as long as the unit measures 3-1/2" square -- it will be gone in the next seam!

There are other tutorials for these units out there, some involving rectangles and squares and sewing and drawing lines and sewing on either sides of lines and cutting apart which can be tedious ---I find this to be the most economical and straight forward use of my time and of my fabric because it works with sizes of strips and squares that I already keep on hand, and I don’t have to cut strange sizes and draw lines, etc.

Do what works for you, however you have to do it – to get 64 Shaded 4 patch units that measure 3 –1/2” and will finish at 3” square in the quilt.

If you finish this step and need something else to do ---cut TWO green 3” squares – and slice those on the diagonal once to yield 4 triangles and set them aside for a later date!

Have you checked out our Link-Up for Part 2?  Click HERE!  As I write this post there are over 230 participants!  Way to go!

Our next Mystery Monday Link-Up will be December 10th, so be sure to check back to see what everyone posted on their progress.

Happy Sewing, everyone!