Monday Morning Design Wall

It feels good to get back to work because I can see things more clearly sometimes at work.  Guess it might be that my brain is geared to thinking when I'm there.  With that in mind, I brought in my quilt top that I've been periodically working on (the D9P) and hung it up to see it better.  This is the one I was talking about yesterday where I had thought my border strips were longer than I thought they were.  I didn't feel like cutting yesterday so used what I had on hand.  Yes folks!!!!  Bonni used some of her stash up!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Mark it on the calendar.

So after sewing what I had, I noticed that a) I had forgotten to trim off the ends of the strips.  Forgot what you call that area which doesn't have the design on it.  You know what I mean.

That is also when I noticed that it was a little short on one end.  Still not a problem.  I'll just not make my border as wide as I was originally going to.  By the time I trim that off it will be fine.  Should I do another border or just go on to finish this thing.  I have time to decide because I don't know what I'll do with it when I get it finished but this is what it looks like so far.  Just make that border about half the width it is and you'll get the accurate idea of what it would look like.

I was also reading this morning on the  whipup guest blogger series about half square triangles.  The guest blogger (Kath_Red) on March 17, 2011  talked about how Missouri Star Quilt Company did their HST and how easy it was to do.  She is right.  It is easy to do.  The thing that I liked about the article was that she gave measurements on how to figure out what size your original squares need to be.

For those of you who don't know how Missouri Star Quilt Company does their HST check them out.  It's is really easy.  Take two squares....sew your quarter inch seam all the way around the  squares (all four sides)...then cut an X.  You end up with four HST.  Check out Kath_Red article  at:

http://whipup.net/2011/03/17/guest-blogger-series-half-square-triangles/

If you haven't watch the Missouri Star Quilt Company's YouTube video on Fast and Easy Pinwheels, here is a link to it.  That is where they show how to do their method of making four HST at a time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekYpJzHoW6E

The math to figure out what size your starting squares should be is:

So your math would be this: 
Beginning Square Size x 0.64 = HST size.

If you knew the size you needed your HST to be, but wanted to find out how big to cut your beginning squares, you would use this equation instead:
HST / 0.64 = Beginning Square Size.

This was taken from Kath_Red guest blogger site.  If I need to delete this part off my blog let me know.  She did the math not me but do check out the article (see link above).