I like it too, Lori! Wow!

WOW! Lori, that is fabulous!

Great idea to do the black and white with color accents, Lori. Love the swirls in the black and white fabric. Really curious to see what you do in month 2!

Wonderfully done, looks grate Lori! Looking forward to see the rest. Sounds really good

Month 1 done. Will be doing black and white with accents of color here and there. Of course the border will have the applique done in colors. Haven't picked out all fabric yet, but there is time for that. So far I'm pleased with the way it looks.
Lori

Oh yeah! The disappearing pen! Great idea! I'm not wild about the template!

when I was attaching my pieced unit to the strip, the first one is easy enough but I when I put the 2nd unit on the smaller unit, it worked out perfectly - I guess quite by accident. Then when I did the larger version, I saw that they didn't quite line up and it did bother me. So I ripped it out and then marked the strip with a disappearing pen where the points should be pinned. I used a ruler to line them up not the paper. Lots of pins and careful sewing made all the difference. I know we all have different ways of doing things and we can learn so much from each other.

Thanks for taking the time to contribute.

denise

That's a great tip Annis! Thank you for sharing Any particular brand you prefer?

And thank you everybody else for sharing your tips, methods and ways you do things.

I use double stick tape on the back of my templates, although I rarely make templates from plastic anymore. I now use full sheet adhesive labels to make my templates and they just stick to the fabric, remove easily, and can be used over and over until they no longer stick.

Great tips Rita! I cut some more triangles last week and found that it was really quicker to stack a couple of strips and use the full sized template to DRAW the cutting line on the top strip then use a regular ruler to make the cuts.

You could also make a template with 1/16th inch holes to mark the gold strip where the points of the assembled unit should be so that the points are exactly opposite each other on the finished unit.



I didn't do that on these strips, and the points aren't exactly lined up. I don't have a problem with it, but if you are more particular, this could be a good solution.

I started working on mine last night and after doing a couple I decided to keep the paper on and use the lines as my guide. Works perfectly for me. Yes it's a bit more fiddly getting the papers off but not the end of the world. Annis, thank you so much for the suggestion of useing the add-a-quarter ruler with the templates, that has been fantastic. I don't know if anybody else suggested this yet but I found that putting a tiny strip of double sided tape on the back side of my templates worked a treat to keep the templates in place on the fabric while cutting. It hardly adheres to the fabric but makes a big difference. I have also found that using a Hera marker to press the seams is so much better than finger pressing. Just my tuppence worth.

And it's much faster to remove the paper first. Then you don't have all of those little pieces to remove in the seam allowance. I would probably leave it on if I were doing a miniature quilt or entering it into a judged show.

No Janie, I remove the paper before joining the two units to the gold strip. I don't use the dots on the pattern for that, I just sew with the pieced unit on the top where I can see it, and the starched gold strip on the bottom, next to the feed dogs, so I can be sure to stitch just to the right of the point of the triangles and not stitch over them! Works like a charm!

I can see my points so I don't stitch over them:


You can also see where I removed one triangle and replaced it, stitching close to the first stitching line.
{!-- ia0 -->join units 2.jpg{!-- ia0 -->

Using the dots on the printed pattern will make the points line up better on opposite sides of the gold strip, but I know that my quilt is not destined to be in a show to please judges, and I think this method is accurate enough for me. Sue and Pat are teaching methods that they use to create their award winning projects, and I think it's great to know how to achieve that accuracy!

Thanks for the video Margo. Great job and very clear. Do you wait until after the two units are joined to the strip to remove the paper? It seems like you could use the dots on the paper to make sure the points are sharp and not cut off. Your thoughts?