Old Town Clues 4 and 5--post 3

Half square triangles

This week in between wrapping gifts and readying for guests, I sewed clues four and five of Bonnie Hunter's Old Town Mystery.

Our youngest daughter and her daughter will arrive later today for the holidays. I've tried to stay up on the clues because while they are here, I know I'll be playing with that granddaughter as much as I can!!

If you check out Bonnie's blog, you'll see that she used melon colored fabrics to pair with the neutrals for this step. I didn't have that color in my stash so I used yellow.

Oversized squares

Clue number four was to make a lot of half square triangles and to group a certain number of them together. 

Clue number five was to make some square in a square units using aqua/blue as the center and yellow for the triangles. I used a variety of yellows for the triangles. I was limited on the number of scraps that were large enough to cut the squares. 

This time, I paper pieced these units. It took me a bit to figure out the center size of fabric because it was bigger than I thought. I did find drawing a line that was the size of my unfinished square helped with fabric placement. I over cut the triangles so that I could trim the block to the size she requested. 

Finished square in a square units

In the oversized square photo, you can see the outline of the foundation paper which was the true block size. It didn't take much effort to trim the blocks.

When I paper piece, I use the painless method which is pinning or tapeing the first piece to the foundation. Next, I fold the paper section out of the way and stitch next to the fold. When I'm finished, I unpin the pin. There is no paper to tear and I can reuse the paper foundation.

I found a You Tube tutorial if you are interested in the process. The presenter uses a spray adhesive to anchor the pieces to the foundation instead of a pin or tape.

The finished squares look great. Today, I'll do the rest of the step which is cutting a whole bunch of red and white squares. I'll likely fall behind with the clues next week; but, I will catch up when I can!

Linking to Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts and Cynthia at Oh Scrap.