No Waste (Triangles)

I was finally able to get all of the white on white scraps together and to find some yellow and golds for this clue as well.  I have decided to go with the white background as I had lots of scraps from previous projects and decided that this would be a good time to use them.  The print backgrounds are nice, but after 2 mysteries with rather busy backgrounds, I thought it might be time to tame it down a little bit.

I also thought that folks might like to see how I made the chevrons with out any waste triangle.  How can that be?  Well, some fancy footwork with the easy angle ruler and a template will get you this block with out the waste of the sew and flip.  I had used this once before when working on rectangles that needed a sew and flip triangle end and I was running short of fabric and thought that there must be a better way.  Who would have ever thought that the geometry that I took in high school and college might come in handy?

So here we go - how to do this without waste.

First cut a piece of paper to the 2 inch with that your fabric strips will be.  I used a piece of used printer paper.  Measure your 3 1/2 inch length that Bonnie would have you cut your green fabric somewhere in the middle of the length of the paper.

Next measure 2 inches toward the center of the 3 1/2 inch piece as shown.  This will show you where the corner of the 2 inch white or yellow square would be on the larger piece of fabric if you were doing the sew and flip corners.

Next you will draw a line from the corner to the 2 inch mark that you just made.  I made a dashed line to represent the sewing line that you would be sewing from corner to corner of the square white or yellow piece if you were sewing.  It is marked in the picture below.

Now take a ruler and add your 1/4 inch seam allowance to the sewing line that you just drew.  This shape, a parallelogram, is the shape that you will need to cut from your green strips.

Adding my seam allowances

Cut out the parallelogram on the edges where the fabric will be cut.  Sewing line is marked as noted previously.

Now you will take that shape and using your easy angle or other ruler used to cut half square triangles (you see that I use a Omnigrid product) you will place the template (paper shape) on the ruler that you can use to cut your fabric.

The tip of the template should be at the one of the 'straight' edges of the triangle and the seam edge will lie along the angled edge of the ruler.  Make sure that this is the way you place the template on the ruler.  Your marked 'sewing line' should be parallel to the angled edge of the ruler.

As you can see the 'top' edge of the template lies just on the 1 1/2 inch line, which by the way, is also the line that is used when I cut triangles from a 2 inch strip.  Line up the cut edge with the angled edge of the ruler as shown and tape the template to the top of the ruler.  You are now ready to begin cutting your fabric.

Cutting

Take 2 strips of each of the green, white and yellow colors and place each color together either right side together or wrong sides together.  I do whatever, as you can see from the pictures.

I then put my two white and two yellow strips together so I could cut all four at the same time.  I don't usually do more that 4 strips at a time to keep things from sliding when I cut.  Cut some half square triangles.  These at for the 'tips' of the half-chevrons.

You can see in the picture how the ruler sits on the fabric for cutting the triangles and how that relates to your template.

No you will cut some green parallelograms.  After straightening the end of the strip, cut a half square triangle.  This will make the angled edge you need to start cutting with the template.  I do this and save the triangles for a future project.  The pieces that you see in the little drawer are all from the Lazy Sunday mystery.

  

Using the template you constructed, you can now begin cutting the green parallelograms as shown.  The 'back' edge of the template goes along the angled cut edge of the fabric and the top and bottom of the template along the edges of the cut strip. 

Here are some cut pieces.  

Remember that you cut the fabric right sides together and now when you take the pieces apart, you have the uphill and downhill parts of the chevron as shown.

I have no idea why that template looks so much bigger that the fabric pieces but believe me they are the same size.

Take your yellow and white half square triangle and arrange then as shown to begin sewing the chevrons.

The left side of the pictures shows how the triangles will lay on the parallelogram for sewing.  Sew one triangle to the green fabric, fold that triangle back and sew the opposite triangle on.  Keep track of your colors, you should have one white and one yellow for each green parallelogram.

One triangle is on.

Both triangles on.

Now press the pieces, remembering to orient the seams so they will nest.  I found that pressing the seams in the directions shown result in pieces that 'nest' nicely and have the seam on the piece of the block that comes in contact with the bed of the sewing machine pointing away from the needle for easier sewing.

Sewing to block together as shown results in fewer dog ears to trim as shown below. 

Right way

Wrong way,  more 'ears' to trim

You can now begin putting the pieces of the chevron together in order to get this....

Now with a few 'friends'.

Hope that you enjoyed the tutorial.  Making your chevrons using this method results in only 'dog ears' to throw away or deal with.

I am going to work on finishing my Lazy Sunday quilt tonight.  I only have one border to put on and I am determined to get it finished and out of the way!  I am looking forward to seeing everyone's progress on Celtic Solstice on the Monday Link-up!

WOOHOO!!! The border is done and on!  I decided to make the quilt larger and so it is square and queen sized.  This is the completed quilt laid out on my full sized guest bed.  Now I need to get the backing done so this can go to my quilter.  Time to straighten the sewing room and really get into the new mystery.