One of my favorite scenes from “The Big Bang Theory”…..
And yes, the plot is thickening in the December installment of the Macaron Mystery from Meadow Mist Designs.
She kept the December clue easy and, since I didn’t get around to it until January, that was probably a good thing.
This month we were making a Square-in-a-Square block.
The first step was to cut one set of squares in half on the diagonal and I got confused by this and wondered if I really wanted to do it!! I HATE working with bias seams!!! I finally cut two squares in half and made one of the blocks. When I felt more certain of what I was doing, I cut the rest…..
Next step was to sew one triangle on two alternate sides of the square…..
You didn’t have to trim the corners but I did anyway….
Then, you add triangles to the two opposite sides…..
Now it was time to trim this block to 3.5-inches. I find this hard to do and still keep all of the inside corners 1/4-inch away from the outside. There is almost too much to look for!!
THEN, I remembered the ruler that I bought at Houston….
You can use this ruler for the entire process of making a Square-In-A-Square block, but in this case, I just needed the right-hand section for the final trim.
It works like this….
You line up the inside 3-inch square with the dashed lines on the ruler
Trim it….
Then line the trimmed edge up to the 3.5-inch lines…..
Note that the inside square still matches the dashed line square drawn on the ruler.
The result was that I have 12 (well actually 13 but they don’t photograph as well) perfect Square-In-A-Square blocks…..
…and I learned how to use another new ruler…..
A Win-Win……
4 thoughts on “The plot, like my gravy, thickens”
This looks like a great ruler to have. I struggle too with keeping those 1/4″ points. Trying to use my HST ruler doesn’t seem to work!
I found it to be SO helpful. This is the second of her rulers that I have used and I am very impressed!!
I remember guiding another quilter to be able to line up some Robbing Peter to Pay Paul blocks: fold in half and pinch near the edge on both pieces. Then line up those pinches on two pieces to get them to sew in the right place. The same remedy keeps one from overshooting the triangles to the squares.
I am always putting pinch folds in pieces so that I can line them up. Now you have me thinking about “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul” blocks….I need to make some!!!!