Girt by Me: Dark and broody windmills

Wow that first month went quickly. I always intended to be a little ahead of everyone but here I am in month two and I’m not finished. I’ve come unstuck with not quite enough background fabric – I’ll be finished soon!

BUT, I have progressed enough to have some helpful hints for you!

I wanted a link from the previous round so have carried some of the colours across. The background grey is slightly lighter too. Round one was Kona Steel which is quite dark. This round I’ve used Kona Titanium and then I will use Kona Shadow (very pale grey) for the next two rounds and finally Kona White.

So scrappy windmills or all one fabric – I quickly decided that I preferred matching.

This round of the pattern includes two skills – Half Square Triangles (HSTs) and Easy Corner Triangles (ECTs) which create the rounded corner of the windmills.

 

My tips for HSTs and ECTs:

• Be careful with your 1/4 inch seam allowance, I’ve heard using a fine thread is good and using a ‘scant’ seam. I put some Washi tape on my sewing machine and also my 1/4 inch foot
• You’ll be working is a bias cut so starch is your friend. Don’t pull the fabric too much.
• Press don’t iron … press down rather than back and forth which can distort that seam line. I also finger pressed a little first and then used the iron.
• Biggest tip – get your hands on a 2.5″ Bloc Loc ruler (you’ll use in the final round too). Combined with a rotating cutting mat, it makes trimming a breeze.
• Nest your seams. When you sew your first two squares together, you’ll see that the seams naturally ‘nest’ together so they perfectly align. I sew the first two squares and without cutting the thread, sew the second two. Then open and sew the four together.

There is plenty of info and videos out there on Half Square Triangles but let me know if you want another Facebook Live Video and I can do one.

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Guess what, I did get it finished at the Retreat. But I’m not happy. I need to unpick. My windmills were a bit bigger than the centre medallion. I made it fit but it doesn’t sit flat. So I’m going to unpick, make my ‘scant’ 1/4″ seams a little more like 1/4″ and re-sew.

I was going to try to do that before sharing this with you but you know what … I’m being open and honest and hopefully you will learn too!

So my tip here is measure your strip before attaching to check you are ok. I was rushing this on the last day of the Retreat and thought I could fudge it!

Enjoy your HSTs

Jane