Mystery Quilt 2007 - Part 4

Hello again! Here we go with this week's installment.
If you missed any, You can accessPart 1, Part 2 or Part 3 here.

Today we will be working with all those triangles we cut two weeks ago. Grab up all the triangle pieces - 100 in color B and 100 in color C.

This time you will be sewing the diagonal sides. These diagonal sides are on the "bias" of the fabric. Woven fabric, as you know, has threads that run two directions - horizontal and vertical. ||| or =. Seams that run along either these horizontal or vertical lines are the most stable. Since the threads are finite in length, there is very little "stretch" on the "straight grain" of the fabric.

This is not true with the bias. Bias seams stretch. They wiggle. They squirm. They can be ornery. Our pieces are only in the neighborhood of 6 inches long, so they aren't that problematic, but do be cautious here. Don't pull on the fabric while sewing or ironing it. Making your seams a tiny bit LESS than 1/4 inch won't hurt (TINY bit, mind you - not half size!!) and you can always cut the piece down a little if it turns out too large. (too small would be a Bad Thing®)

Ok, now that you're scared of your own triangles (sorry.), let's put 1 B triangle and 1 C triangle face-to-face and sew that long diagonal side, making a nice square that is 1/2 C and 1/2 B diagonally.



As before, carefully iron the square open, pressing the seam toward the darker fabric. Unlike before, you will find that you have excess seam-allowance peeking over the edge of your square like rabbit ears. Trim off these little bunny-ears carefully. The image below shows with obnoxious neon red and orange arrows where you will see these "bunny ears"




When you are done, you should have 100 of these diagonal 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch squares. Put them with the plain squares, the 1/2 and 1/2 horizontal squares and all those other pieces - we're done for now!!