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Feather Meander

Last Friday, I posted about my first exploration into the Fabulous Feather challenge from Angela Walters.

Overall, I was pleased with my first foray into feathers.

The second lesson was the feather meander. Since it had the word “meander” in it, I assumed that it would be easy…..

NOT….SO….MUCH!!!

I started out with confidence and the first couple of rounds were great. Then the rot set in and I simply couldn’t figure out which direction I needed to head to make the feather….

Apparently, if you turn the wrong direction, you get stuck!!!

I pulled out the whiteboard and went thru it step-by-step…..

Okay….maybe I see what I was doing wrong!!!

Things started looking better…..

…but every once in a while, I had a moment. I am not sure exactly what happened in this corner…..

Angela always says that your eye will be drawn to a gap more than it will to a mistake and her observation was proved when I looked at the final piece…..

That looks pretty good….even I do say so myself!!

Have you had observations like this before???

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2022 Monthly Color Challenge

As I posted recently, I greatly enjoyed participating in the Monthly Color Challenge from “Patterns by Jen“.

Last year was all about fruits and vegetables. This year we are continuing in the kitchen theme with the 2022 Spice Challenge…..

This year, Jen provided details for making all of the blocks with the same background. Since I am planning to alternate` both sets of blocks into one quilt, I decided to use the background option.

It took a while to cut all of the background pieces…..

….but they are all bagged up and ready to go now.

The spice for January is ORANGE!!!

Now, I normally wouldn’t call it a spice, but it IS used to add flavor…..

Since the background pieces were already cut, it took no time at all to cut the 3 orange fabric pieces….

Isn’t that orange fabric the PERFECT color!!!!

I quickly sewed the two seams for the “snowball” blocks…..

….and a few more minutes to sew the seams for the half-square triangles….

A quick layout…..

….a few more seams and the first block for the year was finished!!!!

Jen suggested that we show other quilts in the monthly color and I decided to share one that was given to me a number of years ago…..

Mary Ellen used various threads and decorative stitches to create this beauty and I was honored when she gave it to me!!! It is a favorite!!

I think that this a GREAT start to a new challenge!!!

Trimming 1/4-square triangles

Today on Terrific Tip Tuesday, we are trimming triangles!! Say that 5 times in a row…I dare you!!

Most of us are happy trimming 1/2-square triangles….we could do them in our sleep!!

But, trimming a 1/4-square triangle can get tricky!!

It is important that that the center point ends up in the right place….ie….the center!!!

If you just put your ruler down and cut, it may end up like this…..

The solution is to add one additional registration point….

To find that magical point, you divide the trimming size by 2. So, if you were trimming to a 2-inch square, the 1-inch point on your ruler would need to be touching this center intersection…

It gets trickier when you are trimming to a 1/2-inch….ie 2-1/2-inch square. Then the centering mark would need to be at the 1-1/4-inch point.

Enter my hack!!

I talked two weeks ago about using painter’s tape on rulers and this is the perfect solution here.

If I place a strip of tape at the 1-inch intersection point…..

….I can line my ruler up with the diagonal line and then slide the ruler down until I can just see the intersection in front of the tape…..

I really could see it but the photo angle makes it disappear….sorry!!

Now that it is in position, I can make my first two cuts and reposition my ruler for the next two…..

The result is a perfect 2-inch, 1/4-square triangle with the center in the center…..

Do you have other cutting tips??? I would love to hear them!

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