Project 3 - Cutting Query - Solution!

Well, it's a good job that you lot are all so bright with regard to this quilting lark - & so willing to help out when I get stuck - thank you all!

And above and beyond the call of duty - not only did QuiltSue get stuck into my cutting dilemma, she even went & had a play around with the instructions as given & some fabric to see what they really mean.

Meanwhile, I went & did some hard sums - my maths is more reliable than my seam-skills as yet, so I wasn't convinced that practise pieces I did would give a definitive right or wrong, so I put my mind to work on the numbers, and how the 2 1/2" strips that I started with would end up after piecing, cutting & more piecing (but hopefully no stretching).

Sue said "if you put the tip of your ruler at the top of your tube, the line measures 6 1/4". Hrmph. Told you so.

"Cut as they say and when you open up and press you have a 6" (unfinished) block, so your finished block will be 5 1/2". You can't make it as they say at 6 1/2", and believe me, I tried!"

This means that when you put four of these mini-blocks together to make a big block square, the finished size will be 11", like the book (& my maths says). Spot on. Good.

Nice that the book gets something right - don't they road test these things?

Perhaps it is aimed at a more experience quilter, but if I had cut per the instructions, with the top of the triangle on the seam not the top of the fabric, I would have had chopped the upright triangles 1/4" short, and if I'd have cut per the diagram, the upsidedown half of my triangles would have had the pointy bit missing!

Thank you all again - what a nice bunch of people quilters are!