A tip for when you flip

Yesterday evening Mr. Podunk asked if I would do some "manly" sewing.  As much as I dislike doing mending and sewing hard to sew fabrics I did it with a smile.   Afterwards I felt the need to shake the man dust off of the sewing machine with a quick girly girl block.   This little cutie is 100% scraps even the white background.  You might recognize the green fabric from my latest Back Porch Blooms quilt along.  If your new to the blog and would like more information about the quilt along and free patterns you can read about it here and here.

 Most of my free patterns use the flippy corners method or as I like to called it "stitch, flip, clip".  The pictures below show the process.

1. stitch a diagonal line from corner to corner.  

2. Then stitch another line 1/2" or so away from the first line.  I just move my needle position over as far as it will go and line up the left side of the open toe foot up with the first stitched line.  

3.  Cut between the two stitch lines.

4. The part you cut off is your bonus half square triangle.

At this point I would just toss them in the basket beside my sewing machine just for  bonus HST's.   Not all flippy corners are large enough to keep.  The original size of the flippy corner must be at least 2" in order for me to take the extra step of stitching the second line.

After digging through the basket of goodies to find 8 matching HST's the fun part begins....clipping those wings!

  Using a ruler with a diagonal line makes the trimming go much faster.  Just place the line on the seam and trim two sides, turn and trim the other two sides

There's many different layout options for blocks.  Below is just a few.  A couple more good patterns would be  The ocean waves quilt block and  Tree of life quilt block.  The possibilities are endless!

I guess the old saying is true...."saved the best for last".   Hmm...looks like a sweet leaders and enders project to me, and a great little mini quilt to add to the wall.  So as you play along with the Back Porch Blooms Quilt along and Linky Party keep those extra HST's handy, there just might be a free pattern or two for using them up!

~  Lea Anne ~

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Design Wall Monday and a TIP

A few months ago I began digging through my scrap box and sewing up HST's using Printable Papers found here.  Last night during the Super Bowl (By the way it was a great game!) I needed a project that would keep my hands busy but not my eyes, so I began ripping off the papers.  Here's the layout I came up with. It'll finish at 12".

Tearing off all those papers was a chore.  Even though I had my stitches set small the paper still wanted to pull my end stitches out.  So here's my TIP if you use printer paper to make these.

A jar with with a few inches of water, a dishcloth, wet and rolled.

Push the wash cloth down in the water.  Should it start to dry out just push down in the water and pull it back up.  Now I place these between my legs as I sat on the couch with a quilt draped over my lap(in case the game got exciting and I spill the water) I had the jar closest to me and then the bowl sitting behind that, with the box of HST's to my right and the finished ones to my left.

First fold on the seam, paper side to the outside

 

 Swipe the seam just as you would your credit card when buying more fabric.

 It doesn't take much to get it wet enough to work.  

Fold the paper back, creasing it with your thumb.

and rip

 and rip

For the most part, the paper came off clean, but some left behind very minimal traces of paper.

Finger press

   This box had 720 HST's, not sure how many I actually finished. 

Until next time "Quilt out of your Comfort Zone!"

Lea

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