New Yarn, New Blocks

Well yesterday I didn't really do my block. Oops! Well first of all it was a stupid, paper-pieced Teacup. I don't do paper-piecing, I don't like tea, and I don't do teacups. So there. What I did do yesterday, was spend the day spinning the rest of the Spiderman Meets Obama yarn. I am really happy with the turnout and I have it up for sale in my Etsy shop. I have 7 Obama yarns up, and I am offering free shipping on them until midnight on Inauguration Day.

So today I made a block to make up for yesterday. These are the LOWER setting triangles for the Monochromatic quilt top I am making (the operative color being ORANGE). So the top setting triangles were brights, like a sunrise, and the lower ones are darker orange to orangey-browns, like earth.

Today's block was stupid too. It was a lil' bitty Diamond In A Square that finished to 3". I mean really. Like what am I going to do with that? And if I make it finish to 9" like the rest of the Chicken blocks I have been doing, it would look just dumb. So I made it a 9-patch Diamond Square. Nothing like complicating things for myself. Here is a pic of the block, and below I will give you directions, just in case you are a quilter or piecer and want to try one on your own. And below that, I will give the math, so if you don't care about that part, you can glaze your eyes over and skip a paragraph.

Cut 2, 5.5" squaresof a rather dark fabric. Halve them diagonally. If your print is directional, halve one upper right to lower left and one upper left to lower right. These are your outer setting triangles. Cut 2 squares of a light or medium tone fabric to 4 3/16". I know this is an odd measure but just trust me. 3/16" is just shy of 1/4" on your ruler, so measure to 4 1/4" and back the ruler off a hair and you will do fine. Halve them diagonally as you did the 5.5" squares. Then cut 5 dark and 4 light, 2" squares.

Assemble the 2" squares into a 9-patch. Press and square it up to 5" exactly. Next take the triangles that were 4 3/16" squares and sew one to each side of the 9-patch, letting a *leetle* corner of each one extend evenly past the edge of the 9-patch. Press and square this up to 6 7/8" exactly. Then sew the larger, dark triangles to the sides as you just did the light triangles. Press and square up to 9.5". Tada!

The Math: The Total square will finish to 9" plus seams. So half that, for the outer triangles, is 4.5". You add an inch in order to compensate for having to halve the squares diagonally and make a seam. So the outer squares are cut to 5.5". The next square will be the hypoteneuse of 4.5" (4.5" x 1.414) which is 6.36". The nearest common measure we would use is 6.375" (or 6 3/8"). Half that is 3 3/16" inches. You add an inch for making it into triangles and adding a seam, 4 3/16". The hypoteneuse of 3 3/16" (3.187" x 1.414) is 4.5" which gives you your finished size of the 9-patch. 4.5" divides evenly into 1.5" finished components. After adding seam allowances, the pieces must be cut to 2" square. Easy as 1, 2, 3, 5. LoL

Richie was off today so he got some stuff moved in the back porch and otherwise we goofed off, went to the post office and the store for trash bags, wheat bread and sugar. Tonight we are going to watch the new CSI (I can't stand that Grissom is leaving) and a movie, I will read to him and call it a night. Goodnight!