Panache 2

So, how's the block coming along?  Here is the rest of the Center Medallion block...

First cut your pieces of your starched fabric. Fabric D is two 9 3/8" squares. When you cut fabrics C and B the squares are 9 3/4" squares, don't do what I did and cut out more 9 3/8 " squares - I hate when I do that...

Cut the diagonal pieces as described in the instructions.

Now get things lined up for some chain piecing. Again, remember to have your fabric far enough under the needle that the first stitch goes into the fabric, not before, or the machine will try to eat the corner of your pieces!

Press them open, and trim your tags. This is going quickly now, isn't it?

Following the pattern instructions, you are going to sew each of those to the larger triangle from the D fabric. Line them up and chain piece them.

Press them open and trim your tags. Now line them up so you can see the pinwheel look. Sew the top two and then the bottom two.

As you get ready to sew those two pieces together now, you need to learn to "butt" the seams together. Press the seam allowances in opposite directions on the the two you just sewed together. When you match the seams together see how the seam allowances are on opposite sides?

Pinch them together and move your fingers back and forth so you get the feel of when these are butted right against each other. You can feel when there is a gap between them - make sure there is no gap! This technique  makes it easy to get things to line up perfectly!

After you have that center block together get the pieces you made from the last post. Line things up into three rows. Sew the three rows. When you press them, press the seams on the top and bottom rows toward the center. Press the seams in the middle row toward the outside. Now you can butt those seams up together when you sew these three rows together.

Yay! Now lets check and see how things matched up!

See how these corners all meet at the same point? That means you cut accurately and sewed accurate 1/4 " seams. It also means that when you starched your fabric you kept it from distorting on the bias cut edges.

You also want your points to all have a point! Some times the points get cut off when things don't go together quite right. No quilt has ALL the points and corners match up perfectly - well none of MY quilts anyway! :)  If they are awful I pick them out and do them again, if they are close I check to see if pressing them the other direction helps, sometimes that's all it takes to change close into perfect!

Now somebody let me know before you all get together to make the next block!!