To Piece or Not to Piece, that is the question....

This is what 1,080 half square triangles (size 2.5") look like all joined into a quilt top.

It's 60" x 72" and I'm so pleased with the block layout. Standing directly in front of it, the diamonds and zig-zags are predominant and the four-petal flower or four-leaf clover design are rather pretty, I think. If you tilt your head on an angle you really see the crosses, or Xs and Os, like hastily penned hugs and kisses at the bottom of letters - the old fashioned kind written by hand.

I'd like to try adding a pieced border, a scrappy zig-zag, to see if I like the effect.  It may turn out that I prefer a simple border treatment in the end, but I'm going to fold this away for a while and make a few scrappy zigs and zags to audition next to it.  I only need about 130 of them and I still have lots of scraps of the same fabrics I used to make all the HSTs.  The box is half full of 2.5" x 4.5" bricks, so I have lots of bits already cut to size that I can immediately start piecing with to experiment.

What I learned from making this all-HST quilt top:
1.  Pre-washed fabric made this top possible. (I prefer to piece with unwashed, but these are really old stash, from the days when I pre-washed everything, and I think that using unwashed would have made the seams bulky and stiff beyond my patience to deal with them).  That said, I've made blocks using bonus HSTs from unwashed fabrics and persevered.
2.  Be prepared to re-press HST seams in the opposite direction to make it less bulky (or press all your seams open from the start.)  If you know what pattern you are making, try putting a block together to see how many HST need to be pressed towards the light fabric and how many to the dark and keep them separate as you make them.
3.  Break the block design down into four patches (if you can) and twirl the seams.  This ensures all joining will work like a dream, even if you turn all your patches around and go with an alternate design at the last minute.  This, of course, assumes that you always twirl in the same direction.
4.  You can live dangerously and join your HSTs into 4-patch components before trimming (assuming they are close to the end size) if you line up your sewing at the diagonal HST seams, and then at the two patch seams, not from the fabric corners.  That will reduce your trimming time to 1/4 the effort and time.
5.  Use a hot iron with steam (or spritzing from a water spray bottle) when pressing seams, especially when they are bulky.  Be sure to let your HSTs, 4 patches, or block components cool down and dry completely before doing any trimming.  I often let them sit overnight.
6.  Do not store different size HSTs in the same box if you want to save yourself heart-ache when you run out of the size you need and the remainder are smaller.  At least if they were bigger, I could have trimmed them down instead of having to make more.
7.  When you keep hearing  a soft pucka-pucka-pucka-thunk-thunk-pucka change your needle, it's grown dull.  Can't believe how beautifully a new needle sews threw multiple fabric layers in the block corners!  When did you last change your needle?

Back in HSTs

I spent most of the morning cutting, sewing and ironing all those extra half-square triangles I need to finish my Great HST Caper blocks.  (See, I thought those plastic containers would come in handy once the chocolate bars were finished... no, I didn't eat them all myself.  I bagged up the bars from these two containers and dropped them off at my salon when I went in for a trim.  Honest!)  I've got the HSTs separated into two piles - seams ironed to the dark and seams ironed to the light.

I have about 280 HSTs made, more than enough to finish off my flying geese components with a few extras for colour choice as I make them.  I rank high on my list of most annoying occurrences in quilting - the getting to the end of a long line of scrappy chain piecing only to discover that the last half dozen units being sewn together are all the same fabric.  Unless interrupted by something more exciting, I will be sewing flying geese this evening.  I had intended to get these done in a more gradual approach (like, say, over a few days), rather than with the single-minded obsessive maniacal intensity I had today, but once I got started I couldn't seem to stop.  (That may have something to do with the housework chores I had assigned myself today.)

The one good thing about sewing triangles cut on the bias for these HSTs, is that they are almost perfectly sized from using my Easy Angle ruler.  So I am going to try sewing these together without the added labour of trimming off a thread or two from each one to make them absolutely perfect.  I figure I can always square them up as four-patches if I have to.  Squaring and trimming 62 is a whole lot more preferable to squaring and trimming 280.

I feel like such a rebel... a rebel who has a very grubby apartment but 280 new HSTs to play with.

Great HST Caper - out of HSTs

I found an alternate layout I like better for the blocks of my Great HST Caper.  This happened entirely by accident when I was putting some four patch units up on the design wall this morning and got some components turned around.  I continued with the alternate layout until I had four blocks on the wall to look at.

Then I put four blocks up of the pattern I was originally going to make, for comparison.

After looking at them both for a while, I find I prefer the new layout.  And since I took the rather wise path of twirling my seams, the layout will not be a problem because of seam butting.  I'm eager to get the blocks put together.  My excitement, however, was tempered by a problem.  I've hit a minor road block in my piecing...

I chose the name Distracted Quilter for my blog but could easily have used Oblivious Quilter or Forgetful Quilter and have it describe me very well.  In preparing to sew the last 60-something flying geese units for my Great HST Caper quilt, I discovered something horrifying... the bottom of the HST box is filled with 2" HSTs - not the 2.5" HSTs I've been using.  A little voice in my mind said "See, I told you so!  You should have stored these two sizes in separate boxes."  I hate that voice.  It always seems to deliver common sense logic with a rather patronizing or amused twist.  And, of course, now I remember that there were, indeed, two sizes in that box.  As I recall, I did it to reduce the number of boxes so it would fit on my closet shelf.... this was back when my entire stash fit in a few boxes that could be tucked away on a closet shelf.

So I have enough centres and corner units to make 30 blocks, but only enough flying geese units to make 15.  I almost cried.  But it's Remembrance Day and I've been listening to radio interviews with some of our brave veterans - in particular one young soldier who lost both legs in an IED blast in Afghanistan.  As I listened to him quietly describe his love of freedom and country, of doing what needs to be done.... well... somehow my miscalculating the number of half-square triangles for a quilt project no longer ranks up there with major disasters.  And I found myself wiping away tears for a more important reason.  My sense of the true importance of things re-established, I was better prepared to deal with the minor glitch that has my HST Caper off track.

So..... (deep steadying breath) I need another 62 flying geese units, which translates into 248 HSTs.  I can't believe I'm going to have to make more of them.  And I need them to be ultra scrappy to fit in with the rest of the components.  I pulled out a box that contains the scrap fabrics most of my HSTs were made with and started pulling 2.5" x 6" bricks and 2.5" x 4.5" bricks.  You really should stop buying fabric, my inner voice said.  "You could make another two quilt tops with just this box alone."  "Shut-up!" sez I, startling Lucas from a sound sleep.

I pulled out over 80 dark bricks, and as many light ones as I could find in the box, relieved to recognize most of them as fabrics used in the other 800-plus HSTs  of my block components.

I can use my Easy Angle ruler to cut them.  With this ruler, I can get a 2.5" HSTs from a 2.5" fabric strip.

I can get three 2.5" HSTs from two 2.5" x 6" bricks and two HSTs from the 2.5" x 4.5" bricks.  The cutting on the first 60 HSTs is done.

I just need to cut this many another three times, then sew, press, square....  And, of course, the left over small triangles are going to be thrown into the crumb box.  I briefly considered piecing them into 1.5" HSTs then dismissed that as an act of insanity.  This project already has me talking to myself.

The Great HST Caper

It's been a month since I posted about The Great HST Caper.  Wow, time flies!  I made the final choice on which block I want to use (4 blocks laid out on the design wall in the pic below) and today I figured out how to proceed with the block components.  I still haven't discovered what this block is called and have been referring to it as a modified depression block.

I'm going to make 4 patch components (and twirl the seams clockwise), then assemble the final blocks as 9 patches.

The plan... (My! that sounds efficient and organized, let me say that again)... the plan is to end up with a 60" x 72" flimsy (12.5" blocks laid out 5 x 6).  The calculator tells me that 30 blocks will use 1,080 HSTs from the box containing about 1200.  This seems like the most efficient way to proceed.  I can either chain piece in a marathon session, or I can proceed with it as a leader n' ender, or do it in a combination of both approaches.

Each block has 4 of these corners = 120 light left leaning lazy diamonds
and 120 dark left leaning lazy diamonds  (30 blocks x 4 corners)

And 1 of this 4 patch for each of the block centres = 60 dark flying geese

And each block requires 4 of these units = 120 dark flying geese and 120 light flying geese

I've written down the components I need on a post-it note that will sit on my sewing table.  I foresee a lot of counting in my immediate future.  I shall be very pleased to finally get these HSTs used up in a quilt top and off my unfinished list.  They have been on the back burner for almost ten years.

And to think, ten years ago I actually thought this was a good way to use up fabrics I didn't like in a quick scrappy project!  If you're laughing, you've got one of your own tales of woe to tell.

Now I think I'll enjoy a little mindless scrappy sewing in what's left of my Sunday.  I've got some foundation squares starched for string blocks, the 1.5" strip box open on the sewing table, a pile of teeny crumb strips to use as a leader n' ender, and a fresh pot of coffee brewed.

The Great HST Caper

Twelve hundred (give or take a handful) 2.5" half-square triangles trimmed.  I'm finally done.  DONE.  DONE.  Can anyone say jubilant?  I started trimming on Aug.28/11 after blogging about them in this post.  My daily minimum trimming quota was 30, although I frequently did twice that number.  And, in anticipation of my trip out of town tomorrow, I put the last of them through in a final spurt of determined desperation today.  I took a pic of the last two to commemorate the end of that monumental task.  Maybe I should frame them...

And here's the pic of the box full.

I still haven't quite decided on what to do with them all.  I know that sounds kind of silly.  Some quilters pick a pattern and start cutting and sewing components for it.  Generally, this also gives a person an idea when to stop cutting or sewing same said components.  I always seem to do these things the long way around.  Here I am with a box of 1200 HSTs and no specific pattern in mind.  These are really scrappy, maybe a little heavy on the green, containing a couple hundred different fabrics.  These were made the longest most tedious way possible.... pairing up 3" scrappy blocks, and drawing lines on the back of one of the pair.  (Never again!)  My mother always accused me of doing things the longest and most complicated way possible when I was a kid.  Guess I haven't changed.

I've been keeping an eye out for patterns I like that use a lot of scrappy HSTs.  There are some real beauties out there, but most of the ones I liked required cutting more fabrics and using my HSTs as a frame or border around the block.  Always a possibility, but that would have used barely a third of what's in my box.  I've narrowed my selection down to three block patterns.

Option 1 - Depression Block (free pattern here at Quilt Blocks Galore).  Using 2.5" HSTs, my blocks will be 8.5" unfinished.

Option 2 - Don't know if this one has a name of it's own (it must).  I added in a few extra HSTs to my Depression Block to make it 12.5" unfinished.

Option 3 - a Scrappy Sawtooth Star.  I do love stars.  This pattern will make 8.5" unfinished blocks.

I did consider this star pattern, which I have been making with bonus 1.5" HSTs.  (originally blogged about in this post)  It could be done, there are many duplicates of the fabrics in the 1200 HSTs.  But I have to admit, the thought of sitting down and digging through the box to match up fabrics in a stack of 1200 is making me nervous.  Did I say nervous?  I meant nauseous.

So I'm leaning heavily towards option # 2, with the sawtooth star (option #3) making it hard to finalize my decision.

But there's no real hurry to decide.  I'm headed out of town tomorrow.  And when I get back, I still have ten current projects to work on.  The final choice can wait a while.  Maybe I'll see something else that uses up masses of half-square triangles that I can't resist.

2-4-16 Patches - Pattern Chosen

I went back to my original pattern choice to use up some of the 2, 4 and 16 patches I've been making as leaders n' enders - Sunny Lanes.  I have a couple of patterns by that name ripped out of magazines, so I must like the look. There is a free pattern at Quilt Blocks Galore.  I've linked directly to the pattern page here.  The patches I'm using are completely and randomly scrappy, built from 2" strips / scraps given to me by numerous quilters.  I pulled out some of my brights (yellows and oranges) but thought it was a little too bright and I didn't have enough yardage of the yellow I would have chosen.  So I decided to go with some brown and blue for the sashing corners.  Each block will be 12.5" unfinished, laid out like this pic (which will form blue stars and brown squares).

Or like this one (which will form brown stars and blue squares).

Now I just have to decide if I want the stars to be brown or blue.  I made enough sashing to complete four blocks and laid it out on the design wall so that the blues formed a square and the browns formed stars.

Then I switched it all around to see if I liked it better with blue stars and brown squares.

I had pretty much decided on brown stars until I looked at the pics.  Now I'm thinking blue stars.  This pattern is going to produce over three hundred new 2.5" Half Square Triangles because I'm a fan of double-sewing my sew n' flip corners to create bonus HSTs.  I've learned my lesson about tossing them into a bag or box for future trimming though, after finding the box with over 1,000 HSTs during my stash reorganization.  I originally blogged about those here.  (I'm still trimming those little suckers up in batches of 30 a day and may finally be done in another couple of weeks.)  As I make the sashing for my Sunny Lanes blocks, I will be trimming the bonus HSTs as I go.

I cut all the strips and squares today and will start drawing sewing lines on the remainder of the brown and blue squares while watching television.  A double bed sized quilt will only use half of the 4 and 16 patches in my stash, and I have a few more patterns I've found that I'm looking forward to making with the remainder.  After all the low-key brown and blue, I may go wild and bright in the next one.

A bit of Sunday Sewing

Today is the first day of the Canton Village Bloggers' Block of the Month  - I'm going to make mine in scrappy blues and neutrals.  There seems to be quite a good supply of those fabrics in all of my strip bins, as well as yardage in my stash.  All the block # 1 components could be made from 2.5" strips and squares.  I'm keeping all the pertinent links for this project on a Blog Page here.

After finding a handful of colourful 9 patches in my 2.5" strip bin, I decided to keep making them so I could use them as the centres of Sister's Choice blocks - it will be a very colourful and scrappy project.  I'll be making these along with my Bloggers' BOM blocks every month.  The Sister's Choice blocks will finish at 10" square so I will probably want to make the quilt 6 by 8 (48 blocks).  I already have 19 nine-patches so only need another 29 before I move on to the next phase of these blocks.

I like the fast piecing method I read about on Quiltville - where to make a scrappy 9 patch you pull two strips plus a square from your strip bin.  As these are being made from 2.5" strips, I needed to cut two 10" strips in contrasting colours plus a 2.5" square of one of the colours.

After sewing the two strips together, and ironing, the strips are then subcut into 2.5" segments.

Then laid out for chain piecing.

 I made another two blocks for my Traditional Tuesday Sampler (blog page on that project is here).  I did determine that my seam allowance was a couple of threads off, but increased the components by 1/8" anyway.  There wasn't much to trim off to make the blocks 6.5" square.

Here's the pile of scrappy 4 patches that were run through as leaders n' enders during today's sewing.  I've found a couple of patterns I like that will use up some 4patches.  One requires 3.5" HSTs and the other 3.5" strips with sew n' flip corners.  Both ideas require some cutting to proceed, which I hope to have done before I run out of leader n' ender two-patches.

I'm making seriously good progress on the 2.5" HSTs I've been trimming.  Here's a pic of the trimmed box.  Amazing how fast it goes, even if only trimming 20 or 30 a day.

And this is all that is left in the "untrimmed" box.  I am on track to be done with this trimming business before the end of October.  I've found a couple of patterns that use a lot of HSTs.  They too require cutting components.

I can see I will have quite a bit of fabric cutting to do to use up some of these components.  Tonight?  I'm planning on handstitching binding and watching television.

Peeking - Box # 8

Box # 8 is another of my long-term Works-in-progress projects, that I pull out and work on in spurts, then put away until the mood strikes again.  Charm Quilts.  I've amassed quite a collection of charm packs, and have been cutting them into two shapes for two different charm quilts (a quilt made up of all different fabrics with no two fabric patches the same).  One is Half square triangles (3.5") and the other is pyramid-shaped.  I found a pattern I fell in love with in Scrap Quilt Sensation by Katherine Guerrier.

So far, I've put together 15 blocks for the HST Charm Quilt, a few of which I've posted.

As for the Pyramid Charm Quilt, I haven't decided if I want to piece them into lengths, or hexagons.

The thought of dealing with all the inset seams is terrifying, so I will probably stitch the diamonds together as shown in the first pic, then stitch the strips of diamonds together, thus avoiding the inset seams.

Peeking - Boxes # 5 and # 6

Box # 5 contains trimmed bonus HSTs in three sizes - 2", 1.75", and 1.5"

I'm a devotee of double sewing my sew-n-flip corners to get bonus half square triangles. There's a tutorial at Quiltville on the subject called Bonus Triangles Bonanza that explains it far better than I could. Take special note of her comments on making yourself a triangle buddy - a novel idea that will save you hours of trimming and squaring.  There's a couple of quilt blocks that I've been making with these that I really love.

Every time I see those stars they make me smile - I'm going to sash them to make a wall quilt.

The little frugal blocks are really small, each 16 patch square will finish at 6". I can't see making anything bigger than a table runner with them.

The one draw back to working with HSTs this small is the number of seams and layers of fabrics within such a small block.  It can become rather tedious and there's almost as much fabric in the seams as on the surface of the block.  That can add a lot of weight to a bigger project.

Box # 6 is a long standing project - my Orphan Thimbleberries

This box contains various blocks and partial blocks all made with thimbleberries fabrics.  Every now and then, when I want to explore colour and creativity, I take this project out and work on it, adding fabrics here and there to make a block or series of blocks fit.  Piecing left over components into quilt blocks can be an adventure.  It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle that I get to colour as I go.  I've taken a pic of one corner panel of my orphan quilt.

The Orphan box also contains blocks I made to practice something (like getting perfect and precise star points) or the components of abandonned projects (like 60 little pink and yellow 9 patches).  I've used rows of these stars to lengthen a quilt backing or as the feature in a new quilt project.

Okay.  Two smaller projects queued up and two boxes I've got to keep and find room for.

Peeking - Boxes # 1 and # 2

I'm still reorganizing my stash and, as promised, letting you peek into my boxes as I go.  Suspenseful music please......... Box # 1 contains:

Scrappy 9 patches, 130 of them, (4.5" finished). Now there's a story behind these silly things.

When I first started quilting (many moons ago) I overheard a prolific scrappy quilter (whose work I particularly admired) pontificating on the subject of cut squares. She kept stating emphatically that she didn't know how anyone could expect to produce quilts or be struck with creative genius without a supply of six inch squares to work with. Aha! I immediately went home and brutally attacked my stash of fat quarters (that's all I had at the time) and cut everything into six inch squares. (I can hear some of you gasping!)  Then I sat back and waited for the beautiful scrappy quilts to appear. Alas! Nothing happened. Eventually I realized my mistake -- there wasn't a single pattern I wanted to make that started with a six inch square component! So the six inch squares became my albatross and lead to other equally bad decisions I'm still dealing with.

I found a tutorial called Nifty Nine Patches and began using my squares to make them, still with no actual quilt in mind as evidenced by the contents of this box.

The plan to use these up?  The One-a-Day Quilt Along I found at Crazy Mom Quilts Blog.  I'm going to use Kona muslin as the sashing.  As these 9 patches were all made from pre-washed fabrics, I've washed some muslin to cut up.  The muslin is on my cutting mat, the 9 patches are stacked next to my sewing machine and the box has been flattened for recycling.

Now.... what's in Box # 2?

Scrappy half square triangles, about a 1,000 of them.  It looks like a thousand, but there may be more.  I haven't actually counted them.  They all need to be trimmed to 2.5".  Cringe.

This handful of trimmed HSTs is actually the first hundred.  I know it doesn't look like it, but trust me it is.  I counted, so there may be more than 1,000 to be trimmed.  The only way to get these darn things trimmed so I can use them is to have a stack by the cutting mat and make myself do some every time I go by to refill my coffee cup.  This is another example of the disastrous results of cutting all those silly six inch squares without a pattern in mind.  Not satisfied with one disaster, I proceeded to subcut a large stack of them into three inch squares (another equally difficult size to use, by the way) and then painstakingly drew stitching and cutting lines on them to make all these HSTs.

The plan to use them up?  First I've got to get them uniformly trimmed.  Then... a sawtooth quilt border perhaps.  A scrappy Depression Block quilt?  I'm open to suggestions.