Month 1 The Halo Star Block

[Wendy P.]

What a lovely focus fabric. The star is fabulous.

I'm back to work on the star. I waited for the wonderful QS piecing sheets to arrive. Based on a tip in another subject line - I tested to see if my printer ink would bleed. It most certainly did (even after heat setting). Because my background fabric is white, I can't leave the sheets in place. Just a word of caution to others who are new to the product. :dry:

Wendy

[Wendy P.]

Just an update on my earlier comment about the bleeding ink when water was applied to the QS Print and Piece - the problem was an off brand ink cartridge. The Canon ink is "pigmented" and the generic ink is not. :cheer: Piecing will commence this evening!

Wendy

[Olga J.]

I have printed out the paper piecing pages, but found that the 1/2 sq. triangles are not 1 inch as I expected. The sample on page 23 printed out at 1 inch, and was printed out the same way at actual size. Does that make sense?

[Judy S.]

Hi Olga,

I'm not sure I quite understand your question but I hope to help. Print out one test page till you get an accurate 1" test box. Note: it can be slightly off (and I mean slight) but over a number of blocks that difference adds up fast! Keep testing till you get that 1" -- over the course of the quilt it will save you a lot of heart ache.

For printing out paper piecing patterns,
1) Make sure your printer is set for "ACTUAL SIZE" or "SCALE 100%" or 100%
2) Turn off SCALING to "NO SCALING" or "NONE"
3) Turn off "FIT TO FRAME" or "FIT TO PAGE"

Of course TQS has a video on this topic by Margo Clabo which discusses printing and paper choices for paper piecing.
https://youtu.be/bgT2pWhwTaA

Judy

[Olga J.]

Thank you for your reply. The sample 1 inch square is the right size. The half square triangles on my printout don't measure 1 inch. Should they?

[Barbara B.]

OlgaJo, the half square triangles are supposed to be slightly larger than 1". I suggest you measure the solid line on Units 6, 19, and 12, using page 9 as a visual guide. Those 3 Units will add up to 16" finished, giving you a 16.5" unfinished block. The math in a Feathered Star is not always the numbers we expect--that is why paper piecing is so great. It would be much more difficult to piece this block if you had to cut and piece each feather so it is "slightly" larger than 1" finished. I hope this information helps you.

[Kim R.]

That is an excellent explanation Barbara...makes total sense!

[Renata L.]

For anyone still having a hard time getting a 16 1/2" block and having trouble getting a perfect 1/4" seam... I took a slightly different approach to getting the 1/4" seam right and it seems to be working so far.

Rather than testing the accuracy of the 1/4" seam in the more conventional way, I took one of the paper templates, cut on the line for the seam allowance and then used that as my test under the machine. I placed the needle on the paper seam line, placed a "purple thang" to the right butted up against the template, then stitched on the seam line of the paper template. If stitching stayed on the stitching line, then my purple thang was properly aligned and because I used the actual template, I knew I had a perfect 1/4" seam. Instead of the purple thang, you can use post-its or tape.

While I have not put all the blocks together to finalize the star block, ALL of my points are aligning perfectly so far.

[Renata L.]

For anyone still having a hard time getting a 16 1/2" block and having trouble getting a perfect 1/4" seam... I took a slightly different approach to getting the 1/4" seam right and it seems to be working so far.

Rather than testing the accuracy of the 1/4" seam in the more conventional way, I took one of the paper templates, cut on the line for the seam allowance and then used that as my test under the machine. I placed the needle on the paper seam line, placed a "purple thang" to the right butted up against the template, then stitched on the seam line of the paper template. If stitching stayed on the stitching line, then my purple thang was properly aligned and because I used the actual template, I knew I had a perfect 1/4" seam. Instead of the purple thang, you can use post-its or tape.

While I have not put all the blocks together to finalize the star block, ALL of my points are aligning perfectly so far. I hope my block will finish at 16 1/2"--it should, I'll let you know!

[Olga J.]

Thank you everyone for the help. I have tried several printouts - actual - 100%, increasing the %, and was finally able to get the right size block - butting 6, 9, and 12. It doesn't make sense, as my test block measures an exact inch on actual, but the block only measured 15 1/2. Now I just have to remember to print all my copies each month at 101%.

[Sharon E.]

I will be putting mine together tonight, fingers crossed for 16 1/2". Will post pictures if successful.

Sharon in, dang its cold!!!, Colorado

[Barbara B.]

Here's mine so far, prepping for a small group class tomorrow. I'll demo the last two units then show how to put the final row together. I'm at 16.5"

[Jo H.]

It's beautiful Barbara!

[Judy S.]

Beautiful color choices. Your notebook looks so well organized. Good on you!

[Renata L.]

For anyone still having a hard time getting a 16 1/2" block and having trouble getting a perfect 1/4" seam... I took a slightly different approach to getting the 1/4" seam right and it seems to be working so far.

Rather than testing the accuracy of the 1/4" seam in the more conventional way, I took one of the paper templates, cut on the line for the seam allowance and then used that as my test under the machine. I placed the needle on the paper seam line, placed a "purple thang" to the right butted up against the template, then stitched on the seam line of the paper template. If stitching stayed on the stitching line, then my purple thang was properly aligned and because I used the actual template, I knew I had a perfect 1/4" seam. Instead of the purple thang, you can use post-its or tape.

While I have not put all the blocks together to finalize the star block, ALL of my points are aligning perfectly so far.

I finished the block. Here is the sample using the template as a guide for the 1/4" seam described above.



In addition to using the template as a guide to determine the perfect ¼”, I followed Sue Garman’s instruction on putting the individual blocks together and pulled paper off the back of those. However, I did not pull paper off the back of the blocks that did not require further assembly after the paper piecing was done (the middle block and the four corner blocks). When it was time to actually sew the blocks together in vertical rows, I used Wonder Clips to “pin” NOT the seam where I was going to sew the two blocks together, but on either side to keep the two blocks together and straight. I used pins where needed along the side where the blocks were to be sewn together and I made sure the seams kissed perfectly, then I sewed a basting stitch across (3.5 stitch length), on the seam line of the paper template, took off the Wonder Clips, checked to make sure everything looked good; if it did, I sewed over the same seam with a 2.0 stitch length.  I took the papers off and pressed my seams. All of my vertical rows measure exactly 16 ½”. This worked for me much easier than with my first sample (Christmas table topper):



With the first sample, my block finished at 16" rather than 16 1/2". Since I paper-pieced and sewed exactly on the seams, I concluded that my problem was not having a perfect 1/4" seam. Using the paper template to set the 1/4" seam on my machine made the whole process a lot easier. Now I'm ready to move on to making the actual halo medallion block! My samples were all made with scraps. Here's my fabric selection for the BOM: