March Pinwheels

[Karen M.]

I'm done with March! I spent the day making the pinwheels. I am so impressed at how well they went together with little fussing. My strips were the stated size and everything went together with no teasing or torturing.


Maggie in E. Central Illinois

[Sharon E.]

Maggie -- I am finished too! I couldn't believe how nicely it went together after the 4-patch difficulties I had. I only had to unsew twice. LOL I will post a pix later this week.

Sharon in warm - we broke a 108 year old record - 74 degrees - Colorado

[Sharon E.]

Holy crap girls! Very quick! I got my foundations and fabric ready to sew today. I'll hit the pinwheels in the morning. I've got the week off from work so I'm able to spend some real quality time in my itty studio! This is me being happy!
Sherry

[Cheryl K.]

I am glad to know these went together quickly. I was wondering if I wanted another month of "detail oriented" sewing. I am planning on getting this out of the way this weekend. Wish me luck!

[Cheryl K.]

Maggie, I LOVE your pinwheels. The color scheme on your BOM so far is really striking!

I'm using more colors on mine and decided I wanted to lay out all my units for my pinwheels first before I started to sew them together, to try to get a better balance and "random" arrangement. That's fine and dandy but now I'm afraid to chain-piece for fear I'll lose my arrangement, so I'm slugging through one blocks at a time. :wink: I'll get there, though. I've already done my stars for this month, so I have plenty of time.

[Cheryl K.]

Someone had asked if I did the paper piecing for the pinwheels, and the answer is yes. What I did was chose one light (white with black flowers) for my background, then chose 9 reds, and 9 greys/blacks. When I assembled the blocks, I first sewed a red and a grey/black together, making sure that red was always on the same side. I made a little system to insure that no two were the same. Then I made the pinwheels. The pinwheels went to together very nicely with little fussing. Just snug the seams from the half square triangles together and the center seam fell into place. The only one that didn't was when I didn't do this. Then when I put the strips together, my grey/blacks were in the center, and my reds were on the edges. So it looks like I have a series of dark bowties. I felt it they were more random, it was be too busy. Just my humble opinion!

Also, Margo has made a starch convert out of me! I used a spritz of starch water with every press. And I pressed open as Sue suggested in her video.

Maggie in E. Central Illinois

[Margo C.]

Maggie, your quilt is looking great!
I know that not everyone will want to use starch....I just hope everyone finds techniques that work for them, and enjoys the process!

[Margo C.]

Well gals, I'm not doing this BOM (yet...) b/c I've got 2 graduation quilts to finish, but lucky me, I was JUST about to do some pinwheels for one of them when I printed the BOM! I didn't need 18 of them but I only needed 2 color-ways so I thought it looked easier, and less wasteful than the Paper-pieced method I was planning. It was a breeze!
Florence

[Sharon E.]

Hi all -- I did not use paper piecing this time. I wanted more variety with the colors. I cut the squares 3" and drew a line from corner to corner. It went fast, but I had to cut more pieces and also had to square them up when finished. But I was able to chain stitch and peddle to metal. I will post a pix later.

Sharon in Warm Colorado

[Sharon E.]

I decided to get it done early this month as I had to really push to get it done by the end of Feb. I ended up with only one border between my 4-patch border and my pinwheels because my 4-patch ended up so big, but my pinwheel is right were it should be. Oh well... It worked.

I was thinking that I would get a bunch of sawtooth stars done this month, but it is a good thing that I did the pinwheel border early because my March just booked up. Great for business, but not as much sewing for me.

[Sharon E.]

My March addition has been added to the Show and Tell.

[Sharon E.]

My pinwheels are now part of my quilt top. March is all done and posted. Now I can have fun watching as other BOM'S are posted. I love watching the beautiful quilt tops grow. Nina

[Sharon E.]

Got my March installment posted. It's a good thing there are floating borders cuz my 1/4 in seam allowance must be way off! Gotta re-test! :roll:
Sherry

[Keith D.]

How embarrassing! Everyone's is going together so smoothly... Am I the only one who made some of their pinwheels spinning in the wrong direction? ops:
I guess I should have remembered that, or read the directions better!

[Keith D.]

I left the sewing machine because I realized I had pairs that would not even make pinwheels and the ones that did, did not all spin the same. ops: ops: ops:
Maybe tomorrow I will be able to unsew all that I need to. :lol:
And here I thought it was going so good. ops: :lol:

Jean In Windsor, ON