Double Pinwheel Quilts

I said I would do it and I did. Whew! This project is finished.

I started work on these quilts August 18 by going to a class. Gramma and Ladybug were going to do it, too, but they decided not to. I think Ladybug had too much on her plate at the time. See Camp Chaos.The first class session was a little confusing and I think that deterred Gramma. I was determined to learn something new.

The first assignment was to choose, buy and pre-shrink the fabric. Then we had to do a paste-up of the quilt block. That is just for archiving and reference. It helps to have a "finished" idea of what is supposed to happen.

See the different pinwheels turn in opposite directions.

The second class session we started cutting the strips. I had to finish at home. Notice the risers on the table legs. Lenie, the instructor recommended them. She told us they were on sale at the local hardware store if you had a coupon. I ran home and dug my coupon out of the recycling bin. They sure were nice in preventing back pain and strain from bending and cutting so much.


Lots and lots of strips.

I cut 96 strips in all.

Chase helped.
Then I sewed two strips together. Next, I put two sets of strips face to face and proceeded to cut them into squares.
Lots and lots of squares
--288 double layered squares, to be exact. (Give or take a few.)

Brig kept me company.
Now the fun part. I sewed two parallel seams diagonally through each square. Then I cut between the seams and pressed the seams open. Voila!
Two very different squares with perfect triangles and matching points. This was so cool.
A little trimming off of points was in order. Why I didn't use my handy pink waste can that you see in many of my pictures, I don't know. I must like to vacuum, or something. I also don't know why I didn't take any pictures of the blocks being sewed together. Even the backside of the blocks was cool. To get the seams to lay flat I had to form cute, little, tiny pinwheels on the back. I wish I had a picture.
I guess I was on a roll.

The last class session I took advantage of the large tables and helping hands to get the quilt tops layered and centered and pinned onto the batting and backing. I also just had to take both the quilt tops to the last class to show them off to the instructor and the rest of the students. They were impressed. I think it was the most ambitious project in the class. Some people do small projects like wall hangings or lap robes to learn on. Not me. I do two, co-ordinating twin size quilts. That's me, ever competitive.

Above you see me trying to do the actual quilting. Except there was nowhere for me to sit because the quilt was in the way. Oh well.


I finished Smile Guy's first. He got it three days after his birthday.
Then I finished Marsh-
mallow's. He got his today, almost six months after his birthday.

Each quilt has 35 blocks in it. I had two extra blocks to make little pillows for the guys to throw at each other.

Thanks, guys, for accepting my learning project. I'm quite pleased with it.

p.s. Happy Birthday, En!