Sunday, May 22, 2011

June BOM: Pinwheel

I made two versions of the pinwheel.
The one on the left use 4 colors with a simple background.
The one on the right uses 8 colors with a background that is also
pieced and has visible seams.
The directions below are for the one on the left.

Make yourself a pattern.
I used a 12" square of tracing paper.
After drawing diagonals & bisecting the square in both directions, I used angle lines on my cutting mat to draw the triangles.







I used my pattern to make templates. (My templates are made from the plastic sides of kitty litter jugs & are thick enough to rotary cut around.)












Scrap piece together four 5" squares and cut each one on the diagonal
OR make 8 triangle pieces using the template.

















Cut TWO 5" squares out of background fabric and cut each square on the diagonal.

(I cut four by mistake!)








Cut two 11"x2.5" rectangles out of background fabric.
Use your pattern, template or your cutting mat to cut each rectangle into two trapezoids.
The longest side of the trapezoid is 6 and 5/8".
The side opposite is 4 and 1/4".










Sew 4 pieced triangles to 4 background triangles.
Press each seam toward the background triangle.

Sew the remaining 4 pieced triangles to the 4 trapezoids.
(Forgot to photograph but if you look at this photo, A is the triangle & C is the trapezoid.)
Press each seam toward the
background trapezoid.





Lay out your pieces on your pattern again.
Sew the 4 diagonals creating 4 quadrants.
Press the seams whatever direction creates the least bulk in the center of the block.
Join the 2 squares in the top half; join the 2 squares in the bottom half.
Join the top half to the bottom half.







Hoping you have some fun!

If anyone is interested in the other pinwheel shown at the beginning of this tutorial & needs directions making the pieced visible curved seams, I would be happy to post again.





































7 comments:

Carole said...

I love your pinwheels, Margaret. Thanks so much for the great tutorial. Can't wait to try it.

Barbara Arcement said...

So pretty! I have to try this soon

Nancy Bowron said...

Can't wait to try this one!

ellen gets crafty said...

This block looks fun, thanks for the tutorial.

Margaret said...

Helen emailed this comment to me & I would like to share this information:

Margaret, I just saw your tutorial and wanted to suggest that instead of cutting two 5" squares on the diagonal (half-square triangles), you could cut one large square on the diagonal each way and end up with triangles (quarter-square triangles) with the straight of grain on the outside of the block....more stable. Your post looks great!

H.

Miki Willa said...

This looks like so much fun! I am going to have to make more than one of these. Thanks for the very clear instructions.

Ellen said...

Love this tutorial, looks like fun. I really like the raw edge background on the square with 8 different colors. Great job, Margaret!