Lupine Part Five Complete

 

It was a lot easier to zoom through the initial sewing together of the Lupine Mystery blocks I'm working on as I'd sorted them out into bundles. This is a picture before pressing the seams correctly.

Pretty soon I was sewing the last seam of the last block.

Beauty shot of the color and fabric print coordinated with my new iron (hee!) of the final block. This might be my favorite block and not just because it's the last one I made. I just like the combination of these prints, and I think the colors work really well together.

And here they all are together in a very purple class portrait. Wow some of those purples are Very Very Dark. Hope it works in the rest of the quilt. 

 Okay, that's part number Five done, so onto the sixth clue I go for this mystery quilt....

Lupine Block Ingredients

Yesterday I had the time to cut out the remaining white squares and set of four matching purple squares that I need for the Lupine mystery quilt. And lthen looking at the stack of really varied  purples, I knew that some fabrics in the hourglass units were going to play better with some of the purples, like this very much lighter overall version of the block above. 

I decided to pre-match them all up into sets of one white square, four matching purple squares, and four matching hourglass units. That means I've got  the rest of the block ingredients all ready to sew these together into finished blocks.

First Lupine Blocks

 

Time for a new Lupine Mystery quilt clue, and this time it's just cutting out four purple squares for the block corners and white squares for the block centers.The hourglass units made in part one way back at the beginning are incorporated as well. 

It's a nice looking block.

Lots of variety going on.

Well, there's six out of the twenty-four blocks to be made. I'll definitely be cutting some lighter and medium purple corner squares.

200 HRTs

 

I was blazing through the trimming of the rest of the HRTs I've been making for the Lupine Mystery quilt (for what seems like months and months now) and I stopped at the very very last one for a picture. I don't think I could have made all of these so easily without the great Bloc_Loc rulers.

Here's the 14 sets of HRTs that were done. I was working on trimming the remaining 11 sets.

I got into the groove and then suddenly all 200 were all trimmed and done, woohoo! I'm so relieved to get this clue done for the mystery quilt.

More and more HRT's, now trimmed

 

Now that all the rest of the HRTs for the Lupine Mystery quilt are sewn together, it is time for trimming!

Five more sets trimmed up.

I put them up on the design wall underneath the previous batch. The Bohemian Wife quilt top is on the left for scale. But wait, something's missing!

There we go that's better. It's getting old trimming these, but they're turning out great, and they're almost done. So I'm pushing through, a few more sets at a time until the to-be-trimmed stack is gone.

Saturday and Sunday were my first workouts back at the gym. Here I am looking very pleased with myself for recovering enough to get to go out and do a good workout at the gym with DH. 

Well-Lit Tiger HRTs

 

Cutting the pairs of rectangles for the rest of the HRTs for the Lupine mystery quilt.

I noticed the cool reflection of the underside of the new portable rechargeable light that I got for myself when it was on sale. That's reflecting on a print I just got from Ravi Zupa.

That's a lot of pairing and pinning, I think 15 sets. And I still have 5 more sets left to cut and pin. But at least I'm prepped for some more sewing tomorrow.

Lupine HRTs

 

Here are the HRTs that I've just finished today for the Lupine Mystery quilt. Only seven sets, with so many more to go. Back to cutting I go.

Back to HRTs

 

Back to actual sewing happening today! Finally! Woohoo! But of course I had to re-teach, re-view, and re-learn how to do the rest of the HRTs with the Bloc Loc Rulers that I cut out for the Lupine Mystery Quilt.

I referred back to the kinda tutorial I'd made for myself way back in June. This is a sort of update to that, with a big deal note to begin with: Both fabrics are right side up when you cut the pairs. Very Important for prints especially.

Flip one of the triangles, right sides together, offset the triangle tips, sew together.

Press seams to the purple.

Make sure you're using the B ruler with the B units, pay attention to which side the seam allowance is on. Trim on two sides.

Keeping the ruler locked onto the seam, spin ruler 180°, slide down to the final measurement of 2"w x 3.5"h.

Repeat with the A ruler and A units.

Okay, one set all done!

There it is, an actual thing that I sewed, and ironed and trimmed.

And then I cut and sewed a whole bunch more, but they haven't been pressed or trimmed yet.

Vintage HRTs

 

The other project I worked on at Sew Day was cutting out the pairs of purple and white rectangles that I need to do clue #4 of the Lupine Mystery.

There are so many "vintage" purples in here, a lot of which were the very first quilt fabrics I ever bought as I've always been a purple person. It was quite fun to use them all and remember "way back when" and to finally be using them again. The one in the lower left corner comes from at least two yard piece of fabric that I had probably bought to make myself shorts or some other piece of clothing. That never happened and I can probably use the rest of it for the backing for this quilt - memo to me.

The rectangles that you start out with are quite large compared to the finished block unit size. It's funny to see them together. I didn't remember to bring my rulers to Sew Day, so I came home with the two large stacks of the 23 more sets of rectangles to work with.

Prints Test

 

Moving on to the Prints Test to make sure I really know how to make these HRTs for the Lupine Mystery quilt. Both fabrics are right side up together, then cut on the diagonal.

The pairs flipped into position and paired with the correct A or B ruler

All sewn together, and doing the trimming.

Okay, now that I've got my brain wrapped around the process, it all worked very quickly. And the prints were no problem-o.

That's two out of 25 sets done. I definitely have some more cutting to do.

HRT But Not Like That

 I am moving on to Clue 4 of the Lupine Mystery quilt. And that means that I'm trying out a new tool, one of several special rulers that I have for making half rectangle triangles (HRTs but not the hormone replacement kind!). This Bloc-Loc one is actually a pair of rulers, one for each direction of the angle.  This makes the markings on the ruler so much easier to use for me. 

I really like how the Bloc-Loc channel grabs and holds the pressed over seam with the HST version that I've been using for a while now. Just to note: these Bloc-Loc rulers don't really work for pressed-open seams because the channel is cut to accommodate the three layers of fabric that is on one side of the seam versus the single layer on the other side.

Once I've made the trim on the first two sides, I just rotate the whole ruler with the block underneath it around and then slide it up the channel along the seam and trim the remaining two sides.

Repeat with the other ruler that has the angle going in the opposite direction and then I've got one set done. And then another, this goes pretty quickly once you get started.

 Still a few more left to sew, to finish up the rest of this set.

Next, I know that I need to make the next set with two prints that actually matter which side is "right side up" to make sure I really understand how to use these rulers.  It's so easy to turn over pieces when they're either these batiks or white on white prints that are "close enough" on both sides.

Lupine HSTs Done-zo

I love when my iron pretty much matches what I'm ironing.

Trimming off the little dog-ears.

Before I cut out the remaining 8 sets, I added some True Grips to my Bonnie Hunter Essential Triangle Tool, and wow what a difference it made! Why didn't I think of this earlier??? I think I've gotten used to the great Quilters Select built-in grippiness of their rulers.

There's all of the middle size of the HSTs required for the Lupine Mystery quilt all laid out. I think I made one too many set, so one will likely not get used (on the front). 

It seems like that took me absolutely for....e.....ver to finish all of those, but, it's a total of 300 HSTs!

Middle Sized

 

I've moved onto the middle size of the HSTs required for the Lupine Mystery.

There's eighteen out of twenty-five sets done.