Month 4 -- Four-Patch Border

[Jo H.]

Happy New Year everyone. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired so I've been trying to work on the BOM. I have all of my four-patch units sewn and lain out. This took me a long time but I'm happy with where all of the colors are.

I ran into a couple of glitches and wondered if others found this too or if I'm just special and have done something wrong which I cannot see on my own.

{deleted first question I had -- figured it out that there should be 18 units on each side with two odd units on two lengths.}

Still need help on the side setting triangles though....

My last question is on Page 6 of the instructions for side setting triangles. It says to cut 36 3-3/4 inch squares and then quarter each square diagonally.

1-3/8 + 1-3/8 inches equals 2.75 inches minus a half inch for seams leaves a 2.25 inch four-patch square unit. If I then do the math shown in the instructions and take 2.25 x 1.4141 = a 3-1/8 inch square instead of a 3-3/4 inche square. I've already cut all of the squares 3-3/4 inches and then diagonally cut them. When I laid them out is when I realized that my side-setting triangles were too big.

What am I missing? I've obviously done something wrong because I couldn't find any comments in the forum about revisions to the pattern. Thank you for helping me figure this out. I'm stuck and can't go any further.

[Rita C.]

Hi Jo Jo, Glad to see you are feeling well enough to get back in the saddle! Okay, I think I know where the misunderstanding has arisen. In her instructions Sue says "two should have eighteen four-patch units and two should have twenty four-patch units." It would have been clearer if it had been written like this - 2 should have 18 four-patch units and 2 should have 20 four-patch units. I remember reading that over and over again because I also couldn't figure out how it got from 72 to 84 four-patches.
As for the side-setting triangles and corner setting triangles, I think that I cut them 3 3/4" and cut them on the diagonal but it was okay once I sewed them together. I hope this is of help. Rita.

[Jo H.]

Thanks Rita. I've been doing short stints of sewing and it has helped with my 'need to sew.'

You are correct. I completely read it wrong when I got to that part.

Do you remember if the side-setting triangles were larger than the units? There is a pretty big 'ear' on each one. I'm hoping that this would get trimmed but since it didn't say anything about trimming, I worried that I did something wrong.

[Rita C.]

I honestly don't remember if the side-setting triangles were too big or not. I think that they were a little bigger and I trimmed them down. I do remember when I was doing the side-setting triangles for the baskets that they seemed to be too big but by the time I had sewn them together they were perfect. I just can't remember with the four-patches. I am sorry I can't help more but my quilt has gone off to the long-arm quilter so I can't even look at it to remind myself! I wonder would Margo be able to help you with that? Rita.

[Jo H.]

Thanks for all your help Rita. Time to quit for the evening and rest my eyes for awhile. I can't wait to see your quilt after it gets back. You did an awesome job on it.