The Friendship block is going into my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for sure - now that I've figured out a fast and easy way to make them without using templates. The first ones I made were done using the paper templates from the Farmers Wife Sampler book. Here is my FWS block, with points matching up well along the white strip, but not all went well.
Notice the slightly raggedy outer edges. No matter how carefully I cut the pieces using the templates I ended up with that issue and some of my colorful blocks were worse than others. The templates are OK when you only make one block, but I did some measuring and decided there is a MUCH easier way to make a lot of these quickly.
I cut 4 different squares at 3.5" inches, and stacked them with right sides up. Then - using the Easy Angle ruler - I made ONE diagonal cut. I also made sure to always keep that larger triangle at the left side so that I didn't mix them up.
Next step was cutting 4 strips - 1.5 x 5". If you are worried about centering the triangles onto it, then cut it 5.25" instead so you have a bit of wiggle room. Lay the smaller triangles on the other side of the strip. And again - I'm careful to always lay them out like this so they don't get mixed up.
I sew the strip onto the larger triangle first, just centering them. I was able to just "eye ball" that, but you can mark the centers if needed. Press to the triangle. Then add the small triangle to the other side of the strip - again centering it. Press to the triangle again.
Then I just use my ruler to square it up to a perfect 3.5". Make sure your large triangle is on the left side again for all of them. This creates very accurate quarter sections to sew together into a new block that is 6.5" inches unfinished, without those raggedy edges. Point all of the smaller triangles toward the center so the strips form a diamond.
Fast and easy!!! This block is definitely going to be one of my GO TO blocks for Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Three more purple, 3 green, and another pink - these blocks will join the ones I've already made. Then I can see what other colors I want.
2 comments:
These blocks turned out very nice and pretty, happy stitching!
A couple years ago I purchased Karen Walker's instructions to make these blocks using rotary cutting and piecing. You may want to check her out. She's on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRIQ_i97Wb8 and her blog at https://chezstitches.blogspot.com/p/laugh-yourself-into-stitches-farmers.html. She really makes it easy to piece these blocks.
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