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.

Biggest HSTs Done

 

I made the rest of the biggest size of HSTs for the Lupine Mystery.

I made a few sets two many as I got too into cutting them out. Guess the extras will be going on the back or something.

Wow! That's a lot of HSTs! I think these are looking pretty good. But I think that the two sets that are really quite purple compare to the others need to not be used.

They really did stick out. I think these will work out. Now on to making the middle size of HSTs, and these will be pink and purple.

Getting Bigger

 

I decided to switch over to making the much larger HSTs for the Lupine Mystery quilt. These are so much easier to work with, so much less fiddly than the small ones that I finished yesterday. I made these pretty quickly and now I need to cut out and sew the remaining eleven required..

Lupine Pink & White HSTs

 

Postponing the ironing and getting it all done before it got too hot in my workroom was definitely the right call.

There's all 25 sets of four of these almost teeny-tiny HSTs™! Now on to the other two sizes that I need to make.

Pink and White Proceeding

Back to finishing up what I'd started on Sew Day, the rest of the smallest HSTs that I need to make for the Lupine Mystery quilt. That will make the necessary 25 sets of 4 of this size HST. I got them all cut out and sewn together. Honestly, the sewing part of this process takes the least amount of time.

But now it's just too hot in my sewing room to iron all of these open, so I'm setting them aside until the hopefully much cooler morning.

It's so terribly **Dramatic**at my sewing machine in the late afternoon in the summer.

Pink Range

 

Switching back over to working on the Lupine Mystery quilt. It's been a while, I haven't worked on this since March! Concentrating on finishing quilts for deadlines and the UFO challenges. I started with cutting out a whole lot of strips yesterday. I brought the smaller pink and white strips with me to Sew Day today to get to work on one of the sizes of HSTs I'm supposed to make. 

Quite the range of pinks at work here. Hope it helps with the variation in the quilt overall.

These are all pressed and ready for trimming.

All trimmed up and ready to go home. Ten more sets of four, added to the two I'd already completed, that leaves ten more sets of four left to do of this size.

Trimmed Geese

All the pink Flying Geese were waiting to be trimmed to size I did about half of the trimming at Sew Day, and the rest the next day.

And here they all are together! Onto the next clue I go for the Lupine Mystery quilt.

 

Almost There Flying Geese

 

The Lupine Mystery pink Flying Geese got ironed, along with a note to myself so I'd press the seam in the ideal way.

All the remaining triangles for the other side of the Flying Geese.

And now ironing the other triangle, with another note to myself to iron the seam in the other direction.

Stacks and stacks of Flying Geese to trim to the correct size.