Reetzbobeetz wrote:
Everyone's blocks are looking perfect to me and I'm loving all of the different fabric choices. I say if you have to zoom in to see the cutoff points you're looking too close.

Yes, my Fast to Sew tool does work for these. I didn't use it for the diagonal seam but I did use it for assembling the blocks. Of course it's always on my sewing machine. I would be lost without it. I will be using it for sewing the diagonals on the flying geese blocks without marking. And I used it along with the guide bars for the nine patch blocks. One of these days I will put all of this together in a book. I've been trying to make tutorials for my website but that takes time and it seems most people prefer videos which I haven't learned to do yet. Maybe after we get moved I will figure it out.

Marianne-is-sewing wrote:
Triangle paper is sheets of paper with sewing and cutting lines marked. You cut strips or rectangles of fabric and sew on the sewing lines then cut on the cutting lines. There are a number of companies that make it to purchase and there are some that you can download free. This is one of the free ones - http://www.blockcentral.com/hst/hst-3inch.pdf. I've designed my own as I prefer to chain piece multiple pages rather than doing one page at a time. If you go to my website under my profile you will find some free downloads of a variety of papers for different blocks that I call Sew-On-The-Line. I only have 1" and 2" triangle paper at this time but will be adding different sizes soon.

To make your machine accommodate a longer diagonal just place something the right height in front of it: books, a box, a plastic container, etc. I use a Pfaff sewing machine with dual feed so I don't normally have a problem with fabric feeding unevenly. I agree "there is a lot more to this patchwork malarkey than meets the eye". It's a never ending learning process, even for those who have been doing it for years.

idaho wrote:

One old saying is " what is seen from horseback while galloping by" is perfectly wonderful !!

Thanks Renata and Lois. Yes the flower fabric was very swirly so I thought that it with the stripy fabric might give a nice effect. Precision piecing is hard Maybe when I grow up I will be better at it.

Rita, Your pinwheels look so happy! They look great to me & I love that the subtle stripe in the background adds movement.

Rita, your pinwheels look perfect to me too but I think I might understand why you're saying that some points are chopped off (even though I fail to see the chopped off points in your pinwheels), and my thinking could be TOTALLY WRONG so feel free to tell me!

When I have the actual block right under my nose I can see the infinitesimal differences in the points and even how close (or not) they are to the center and whether the points are touching at just the right place, even by a hair. Then I wonder how I can do better. I became more satisfied with mine when assembling the half-square triangles, I put a pin straight through the points but not back through the fabric to hold the points in place while I pinned on either side of the first pin. Then I pulled the first pin out and sewed. Too bad I figured this out towards the end of the exercise... Truth be told, when I step back a little from my pinwheels, even I don't notice that my points aren't all "kissing."

Your fabrics are lovely! I can see how the flowers will play off of the fabric of the nine-patch square in a very complementary way. Those flowers are really dancing and happy! I also love how you picked a tone-on-tone white stripe to add a different kind of movement to the movement of the flowers. So lovely and it is that kind of attention to detail that makes your quilts so wonderful to look at!

Rita - I think your pinwheels look perfect, too! I don't see any chopped points in the photo. And I love your fabric! The fun, wild flowers calmed by the soothing white background.

Nancy

Renata, your pinwheels look perfect to me. I have mine done but a couple of the tips are missing No matter how I try I don't seem to be able to get them perfect. But they are still about 100% better than they have been before so I am happy with that.


Annis your pinwheels look perfect too! I think your 'Fast to Sew' tool would work really well for these pinwheels.

Renata wrote:
Ha Rah! Renata, I think your pinwheels are beautiful. Love what the subtle stripe does to the design. How do you feel about having cut into that treasure now that the blocks are done? I have one particular beautiful stripe that's been sitting on my shelf at least a decade that I now know what to do with. Thank you Jan Krentz. All I have to do now is fine the time and continue my determination to use my fabrics. Thanks for the inspiration.

Renata – your pin-wheel blocks looks great. I love the way you have all the fabrics going in the right direction. That must be a bit of a head ache to work out if you make it the way that is described in the video. I have made a note of the ruler video. Could be one to put on my birthday wish list

Annis – thank you for sharing your experience. Can I ask, what is triangle paper?

Nancy – I am glad I am not the only one to have fabric that is 5 years old in my boxes

Now I have to figure out how to make markings for the HSTs because the table on my machine is too small to accommodate the diagonal of 4" squares. Through the 9-patch experiments I have found that the ¼" foot I have and my ruler do not work well together. The foot takes to big a bite so there is negative space for the thread! I could cut the squares larger that would surely work but I actually prefer to use the ordinary foot on the machine because the ¼" foot pushes the top fabric more than the ordinary foot does and that will surely be important when doing something on the bias despite it being done across the square. There is a lot more to this patchwork malarkey than meets the eye

What a great forum this is for learning. Cannot believe I never participated before!
Marianne

and to me , nice fresh fabrics.

I've not watched the video yet but will be twirling if I can

Renata - Your pinwheels look perfect from here. The colors are really nice!

Nancy

Here's a picture of my pinwheels. Lois, you will be happy to know that the two fabrics I used for the nine-patch and the pinwheel were pretty fabrics I did not want to touch because maybe one day I might find something special to use them with... WASTE!!! So I started to put my money where my mouth is... :shock:

A couple of the pinwheels are not as perfect as I would like since this is a learning sampler and at least my objective was to get them as exact as I could. I could have ripped and done them over again, but since I understand where my problem was coming from, I decided to accept them and move on. Big lesson for me: getting the pinning correct and not being sloppy about it will give me better connection of my points. At least I remembered to check that my directional fabric was all going in the same direction...