Celtic Solstice - Pinwheels!

Clue number 3 in Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery has us making many tiny (1 1/2") half square triangle blocks!  200 blocks to be exact - at least for the smaller version I am making. Here's a look at every combination of yellow and orange I sewed into half square triangles!

Not only do I have many fabric combinations, I used several methods to make these blocks. Bonnie demoed the Easy Angle ruler - I used this with the fabrics I had in 2" strips.  I had a bunch of 2 1/2" squares laying around, so I used the Tucker Trimmer for those.  And - I learned a new method where you combine two squares, right sides together and draw lines diagonally and mid-line (like and asterisk). Then you sew 1/4" along the diagonals, cut along the diagonal lines and the lines through the middle of the blocks to make 8 half square triangles at once.  I especially like this method because you do not end up with bias edges and I I will use it again, especially when I need a lot of units out of the same fabrics.   I not use it a for many of the blocks because I went very scrappy and only wanted at most 8 of any one fabric combination.

As you can see in the back, there are two pinwheel blocks done - these are 3 1/2" square and will finish in the quilt at 3" square. I still need to make 23 more of these cute little guys. This means we will end up with 25 pinwheel blocks and 100 of the half square triangle blocks.

Also in the back you can see my Bell jar with all of the "bonus triangles" from Step 2 - the chevron blocks.

I was slowed down this week by a terrible cold, but still managed to finish ironing Step 2, remade a few blocks that didn't quite measure up. I also trimmed all of the step one blocks made with the Tri Recs - and only had to redo one or two of those.

Fortunately, tomorrow's clue -- Step 4 -- is the easiest of them all, Bonnie says.  I should be able to catch up over the following week and finish both step 3 and step 4.

It will get interesting in January when I start business travel again. I am trying to borrow a sewing machine to use in the hotel at night and over some weekends that I will be gone. If that doesn't work out, I will watch and learn as others continue this very fun project. And then I'll catch up when I can! No biggie!

Check out what others are doing - there are some wonderful color combinations from those who chose to go their own color way! Link up for Step 3

Stay tuned! Clue 4 comes out tomorrow morning!!