Hello! I hope everyone is having a good month! I’ve been enjoying all your messages and loving all the pictures you’ve been sharing with me on your quilt progress! I can’t tell you how fun it is to see all the variations in color and text and block design… thanks so much for sharing this journey with me!!!
And here is Chapter 4! Yay!
If you are new to my site, you can read about the Dear Daughter quilt in the first post to get caught up. Of course, you don’t need a daughter to participate. Some are making this for their sons, grandchildren, even for themselves, which is awesome since we rarely do enough for ourselves! If you want to join you can here…
Find the pattern
This is what we have so far, chapters 1-4 are complete:
And they fit into the quilt top diagram like this…
I thought I’d share a few pics with you this month on the pinwheels in this chapter…
They are not difficult to make but they can be tricky to manage with all those points coming together at the center.
Here is how I made my pinwheels, and how to press your seams to avoid a big bump at the center of your pinwheel block:
I used the two half-square-triangle method demonstrated in the Techniques page of the pattern and rounded up to the closest 1/4″ so I could trim and square my pinwheel after.
Start with two squares of each color…
Place right sides together, mark line diagonally, sew 1/4″ seam each side, cut on marked line…
Open four half-square-triangle units and press seam allowance to the darker fabric.
Trim off all the ‘dog ears’ to reduce bulk (important) and organize into the pinwheel block design…
Sew together in pairs… notice that the diagonal seams nest together nicely when the seams are all pressed toward the dark (or pressed to same fabric)…
Now open the pairs up and press the center seams in the SAME direction as the seams in the unit. Notice in the next picture that the seams in the top unit are all pressed to the right, and all the seams in the bottom unit are pressed toward the left. When you sew these together the center seam will nest together and the bulk will be distributed…
After you join these two units together you need to press the center seam in opposing directions and carefully open and separate the center where the points meet…
Now you can see here that all my seams are going in the same direction around the center and the center is pressed open so I don’t have a big bump in the middle of my pinwheel…
Opening the center takes a little fussing if you haven’t done it before, but when you get it right it will be like “oh, I get it now!” I showed the same technique in this post if you want to see another example.
Now, to trim you will need to measure from the center out. I want my block to be 3 1/2″ so I’m measuring 1 3/4″ from center in ALL directions.
Now I have some good looking squared up pinwheels to make my block!
As you know we have Two Generous Sponsors for the 2016 Dear Daughter BOM Quilt-a-Long! Including International Subscribers too!
Every Month 1 Lucky winner will receive a $25 gift certificate from Fat Quarter Shop!
Support FQS sponsorship and check out their new Sew Sampler monthly subscription box.
Full of surprise goodies each month!
Like my fabrics?
Check out my newly curated bundle
at The Fat Quarter Shop!
Also, I’ve been getting questions on my background fabrics so I have some links to share. These are some of my favorites that I have or they are on my wish list!
- Paperie Stamped ~ Art Gallery Fabrics
- Paperie Parchment ~ Art Gallery Fabrics
- Modern Background Ink ~ Moda Fabrics
- Modern Background Paper Graphite ~ Moda Fabrics
- Ghost XOXO ~ Cotton and Steele
- Blueberry Park Sunflowers ~ Robert Kaufman
- Flow Fog Pearls ~ Moda Fabrics
- Blueberry Park Shadow ~ Robert Kaufman
- Story Chevron ~ Windham Fabrics
- Lakehouse Favorites ~ Lakehouse Fabric
- Mojito Mist ~ Windham Fabrics
- First Crush ~ Moda Fabrics
- Rhoda Ruth Grey Point ~ Robert Kaufman
Every Month 2 Lucky winners will receive Steam-a-Seam Lite 2 from The Warm Company!
I’m picking random winners from the subscriber list and
The April Winners are…
Fat Quarter Shop $25 ~ Sandra E.
The Warm Company products ~ Barbara W. and Brittany L.
Yay!
Thanks for following along! Here are some
NEW SHARES…
Chapter 3 from Sandra!
Chapter 1-3 from Lisa!
Chapter 1 from Susan!
Chapter 1 from Brittany!
Chapter 1-3 from Jan! :)
Chapter 2 from Candy
Chapter 1-3 from Kathy!
Thanks for sharing!!!
Here are the links to all the previous Dear Daughter Posts:
Related Posts:
See you next month!
Wow everyone’s look great.Excited to get started on my new month.
It is great to see everyone’s interpretation and thanks for the pinwheel tutorial.
Can’t wait to share what I’ve done…thanks for the inspiration! !