Saturday, October 17, 2015

Stardust Flimsy and the Coolest HST Method

This is wheelchair quilt #10 (counting the first two I donated on my own).  At 36 3/4" square, it is the widest of the ten quilts, and I hope it will be okay as far as not getting caught in the wheels.  I love love love this quilt and plan to make one of my own to take as my 'sit-upon' quilt when I teach yoga.  It was definitely a little more finicky and involved (the small squares and star points finish at 2") than the previous quilts I've made.  Worth every stitch (okay, and a few reverse stitches ha).

This is outside on the front step in natural light.  Again, all five fabrics were in the guild's charity fabric stash.  The two blues are Moda, Brannock and Patek,  and of a superb quality. I loved working with them.  The red is Springs Industries by Ro Gregg, and of a similar quality.  The background is either a decent quality muslin or maybe just a solid, no selvages on it.  The medium blue also has no selvage on it.  Clearly these are older fabrics because of their deep colours, and no names of fabric line on the selvages.

This is a more masculine quilt, but could be for a woman quite easily (after all I could quite easily keep it!).

Here it is on the design wall before the final 2" finished border.
This shot shows the background more as it truly is, a linen colour, not the modern white as is popular now, but this colour just works beautifully with the tones of the other fabrics.

This quilt is called Stardust, and is another in Pam & Nicky Lintott's Two From One Jelly Roll Quilts, a terrific book, from our guild library.  I've made two versions of Fairy Steps for wheelchair quilts from this book; I might just have to get it for my own collection!  I already have two of their books, absolutely love their quilts.

The HSTs for the star points have the coolest technique!  I want to share it with you.  How can you get a 2 1/2" HST from a 2 1/2" strip?  Read on!
1.  Iron the two 2.5" strips of fabric together so they stick together.  Trim off one end to 45 degrees.

2.  Because I don't have the Omnigrid 96 ruler they use, I made my own template.  I first cut a triangle out of fabric that was 1/4" wider than the point of the diagonal which you see at the bottom of the blue triangle.  That would be the dog ear you trim when you cut your strips (squares) at 2 7/8" to yield two 2" finished HSTs.  I cut a pair using this template.  Then I made a paper template using one of the triangles.  I taped the paper to the underside of my ruler as you see below:

3.  In this second cut, I butted up the paper template to the blue triangle that is sitting on top of my strip set.  Cut carefully along the edge of the ruler.  You will notice there is a little gap where no ruler is! Egad.  Cut carefully.  I had no problem, but you might want to move the template up that 1/4".  You will get a diamond shape out of your strip set.

4.  I still haven't moved the dark blue triangle, as I gently lift my ruler and reposition it so that I can now cut the vertical line that separates the diamond into 2 triangles.

Voilà!  These chain piece through the machine so nicely now that the dog ear point is not even there.  You sew 1/4" from the bias edge and you only need to trim the lower dog ear.  Best of all, you get a 2 1/2" HST which will finish at 2"!  Love this.


15 comments:

  1. Pretty nifty technique and quite waste-less! The quilt top looks great, and I do love an off-white linen color. The pops of red really shine in the stars, too.

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  2. Great way of doing HST's. I've bookmarked this for future use, thank you xx

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  3. Oops forgot to say, yet another great quilt. I love Star quilts such a great classic look xx

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  4. I never tire of seeing how you make beauty out of those left overs in the charity stash. Neat triangle technique. Thanks for sharing how you made the template for use with a generic ruler.

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  5. Another pretty quilt! Thanks for showing how you made the HST template fpr a regular ruler. I cheat: I bought the Easy Angle ruler several years ago to do this. It was my first, and for a long time my only, "specialty" ruler.

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  6. Another great quilt. You have been busy.

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  7. A wonderful quilt to donate. I used this method probably 18 years ago. I should try it again.

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  8. Pretty quilt! I had to replace my reverse stitch tool, too much over use maybe. :) I also use the easy angle ruler for this method.

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  9. Yes I LOVE this one too-you definitely have to make yourself one!

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  10. I'm so glad you took the time to explain the technique. Thank you! Very nifty way of doing this.

    It always surprises me so much to see the differences in colors between natural and indoor light. This little quilt is really a favorite of mine. I agree there should be another in the future for you or your quilt borrower.

    Julie

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  11. Another beautiful quilt! Good job!!

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  12. What an interesting technique for HST's. And another beautiful wheelchair quilt. I am quite impressed with the number of these babies you are churning out! I think this might be my favorite so far.

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  13. You are really churning out the quilts Sandra. This one is spectacular. Interesting technique as well. Thanks for sharing it.

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  14. I must remember to try this sometime . You have done fantastically well with all these quilts

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  15. I really love the look of this quilt Sandra. It's very retro and makes me think of something my grandmother would have made. As anything a Granmother makes is filled with love and heart, that is a great thing.

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