Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Ringing In The New Year Mystery Project Part 2

If you have decided to jump on my mystery bandwagon, let me say a hearty "thank you!" for playing along! This being my first mystery, it will be pretty straight forward but I am hoping you find it to finish into a nice result!

So we have all of our supplies put together and now we can start doing some fun stuff!



Take your dark color choice (mine is purple) get it all ironed nice and flat, ready for cutting. Now take the light colored material and press it on top of the dark color, right sides together.

Choose which instructions to do depending on if you will use the Easy Angle Ruler or not. We will be making 128 half square triangle sets of each color!

Easy Angle Ruler instructions:
We need to make 3-1/2" strips. Cut the material along the entire length of the fabric and cut several strips, start out with 7. You may have to fold your fabric in half for it to fit on the cutting mat. Be careful when folding and use a strong hand in cutting or you run the risk of shifting fabric and your strips will be wobbly at the crease lines.



I placed my cutting guide on top of the fabric and placed the 3-1/2" line along the left edge of the fabric.
Cut along the right edge!

After your strips are cut, unfold them and set a strip of the two pieces, still right sides together, on the cutting mat. Now we get to use the Easy Angle ruler! The next 2 pics came out sideways so the bottom of the fabric is on the right side in the pic and the top is the left side in the pic. Sorry about that!

Trim up one edge of your fabric and set that trimmed edge on the left edge of your cutting mat. Line up the Easy Angle Ruler along the fabric on the 3-1/2 " mark on the ruler. The tip of the ruler will be over the top edge of the fabric. That is correct! Cut on the bias!

Now flip the ruler and line the 3-1/2" line mark on the opposite side of the strip and cut the straight side of the triangle. 

Flip back and forth until you get as many triangles cut out of the strip as you can. Do the same process to the rest of the doubled up strips. You could do 2 sets at once, if you are comfortable with the process and the fabric doesn't shift when you cut it. Cut a total of one hundred and twenty eight 1/2-square triangle pairs, right sides together, ready to be sewn.

No Easy Angle Ruler instructions:
You have also pressed your fabrics, right sides together. Cut your fabric into 3-7/8" strips. Place the strips on the cutting mat, still right sides together, and cut those strips into 3-7/8" squares. Make diagonal cuts along the bias edge (point to point) until you have one hundred and twenty eight 1/2-square triangle pairs, right sides together, ready to be sewn.

Now we are back together with the same instructions again! :-D

Grab all the triangles and get to the sewing machine. Since the triangles were cut right sides together, they are all set up for sewing!

We are stitching along the bias (long edge) to make our squares of two half square triangles. Be careful to not stretch this seam while sewing, just guide it along. Power sew one after the other until all the triangles are stitched. Keep the same color on top for each one. 

Once you have them all sewn, they all need to be pressed, seams going towards the dark color. Snip the attaching threads.

Take four of your squares and arrange them this way. This block is named..... (drum roll).... Broken Dishes!

Take two of the squares, right sides together, and sew, then pair the other two squares together. You will find the seams butting up to each other when you place them right sides together so it is really easy to line up your points. Now sew the two halves together and you have your full sized 6-1/2" block! 

Press the completed block. I found that the center seams laid down best if pressed towards the light fabric.

Make a total of 32 Broken Dishes blocks. 

Set them aside until the next clue is presented on January 18th. Have fun with your broken dishes!!!

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