Pinwheels

I only need 31 pinwheels in this quilt.  It's the smallest number of pieces I've had to make.

I tried another new method to create all of the half square triangles (HST).  I needed four 1½" HSTs to make each pinwheel.  So rather than cutting a bunch of small triangles or even squares, I started with a 4¾" square.  I layered the square of contrasting colors right-sides together,  then sewed four seams a quarter inch from the diagonals.  (It's hard to see in the photo below, but there's a pink X across the back of the blue piece.)  Once it's stitched, I cut the whole thing into eight pieces.  I now had eight HSTs to make two pinwheels.

As I was marking all of the diagonal centers (and ripping out stitches from my first attempt after placing both squares right-side up), I wondered how time-saving this was going to be.  But once I started sewing them, things progressed pretty quickly.  My seams tended to be a really scant quarter inch.  Not sure I'm happy with that.  But the resulting HST were quite uniform, which is pretty cool.  Cutting the large square apart went very quickly as well.  I will have to do this again if making a number of HSTs of the same color.

I had done a pair of test pinwheels first, then worked on the rest a day or two later.  I could have sworn I did all the exact things... but obviously not.  I now had pinwheels pointed in different directions!  It was less painful to pull apart the two starter pieces than to undo the dozen I had made going the other way.  I made sure to finish the rest of them while I remembered which way to piece them.  I triple checked everything after that.

Checkerboard pieces are next.  At least I can't make them backwards - or at least not until I put the blocks together!

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