Pinwheel proceedings…..

Since I am only getting to work in my studio on Saturdays, progress on the pinwheel quilt has been slower than I wished!! But, last weekend I worked on setting the quilt together…..NOT an easy task!!

The first step was to piece the “stem” blocks, adding 1/2 square triangles to each side of the check strip and then trimming them down to the needed 5-inch size.

After I trimmed the first one, I knew that I needed some way to easily position the ruler so that the “stem” split the block perfectly. To fix that issue, I took my square ruler and drew guidelines on it using a water-based marker…..

Having this simple guide-line made all the difference in prepping these blocks.

Next, it was time to lay the quilt out and figure out exactly how I was going to piece it…..

There is NO straightforward way to piece this quilt so I finally just picked a few pieces and started sewing them together. It has been a slow, slow, slow process with me piecing one seam at a time and then adding it back to the design wall. As the pieced quilt got bigger, it became easier to work on the floor rather than on the wall…..

At the end of my sewing day, unfortunately, I discovered that I had cut one or more of the background pieces at 4-3/4 inches rather than 5-inches. AND, of course I am running out of the background fabric….ARGH!!!!

As I wait for next Saturday to come around, you can be sure that I will be thinking about how I am going to fix the problem, maybe even leaving the last row off……

Keep your fingers crossed!!!