Had the Babes over night last night and spent all day today with them... what a great part of my weekend!
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| Sunny, Sunday afternoon on a boat ride at a local park! They are my true loves! |
But I did have all day yesterday to sew before they arrived.
Made Block 2 of the Splendid Sampler... I hate the finished product!
BUT, even though I hate how the block turned out... I LOVED the process of getting there because I learned a couple of things. This blog post is a "how to" with a couple new techniques. I hope you like it.
First, Block 2 of the Splendid Sampler was a bunch of teeny, tiny squares to sew together (as you can see.) MY HSTs (Half Square Triangles) are always "wonky" (especially teeny ones) so I was not looking forward to this block. But, when I visited my Auntie in Spokane, Washington a couple of weeks ago (see blog post of February 8) she gave me some goodies from her sewing room. One goodie was a package of THANGLES. I decided to try them out with this block.
I LOVE THEM! I want to go buy every size they have! My HSTs were PERFECT!!!!! You MUST try them!!
OK, you must be asking... If I LOVE these THANGLE things so much... Why do I HATE the block? Because I used the wrong size Thangle for the size of the HST block I needed. I had to cut the finished HST down so much it lost ... something. It lost the points. It looked good in my head, it just didn't work like I thought it would.
So, don't blame the Thangle, blame the person behind the idea-that-didn't-work.
Try this...
Follow the directions and sew Thangles to your fabric. Cut apart. Honestly... I am NOT lying!
This is before the HST is trimmed! Isn't it a thing of beauty!? Only one little ear to trim away.
This is the back side of my block (before tearing away the Thangles paper) LOVE it! I did adjust my thread stitch length as I would with foundation paper piecing.
These are my four butterfly blocks... before I had to trim them down. They are a thing of beauty! I so enjoyed it up to this point. But, the blocks are too big for the pattern, Don't try this at home, the result isn't satisfying. So while I know I LOVE Thangles and I will most definitely continue to use them, they did not work for this particular block.
OK, on to lesson two: Sewing all those little 1.5" squares together...what a pain in the rump.
Then I had an idea. What if I used a small piece of Pelon Shape Flex and fused the 1.5" squares and THEN sewed them. Worked like a charm!!!
First I cut the Shape Flex into 3" squares, the size of the four 1.5" squares. Positioned the teeny, tiny pieces of fabric on the Shape Flex and pressed with an iron. Then went to the sewing machine.
I sewed one way, cut open the seam, pressed. Then sewed the other way and cut open the seam, pressed. After it was trimmed, it was perfect! I got the idea from a product called Small Scrap Grid as used in the book Scrap Therapy.
Bottom line is: In some ways I feel like my sewing time this week-end was a big bust... in other ways I feel like I learned a lot and accomplished a lot.
Oh, one other thing... I decided to re-do both Block 1 and Block 2 (and Block 3 was released today) and to focus on specific colors...it was just too time consuming trying to pick fabrics from my "library." Visited the fabric store after taking The Babes home... I'm going to go with greens and grays...
Tomorrow is another day, stay tuned.
Great idea on the shape flex! I can only use 1 hand and this would make it so much easier for me! Hugs!
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