Quiltingboard Forums - Progress on Ninja Star quilt

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Oh, and BTW, your blocks are great! Nice work!! :D

I had Home Depot cut some plexiglass for me about a year ago. The cost was very minimal and it was free to cut the templates I wanted. The young man helping me looked at me like I had two heads when I gave him all the sizes and shapes, but he did them :) Like someone posted before, call and find out how much a sheet of plexiglass is. Oh and there might be a coupon off in your Sunday paper.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moonpi

This happens to me when I do woodworking - with wood, it's called kerfing, from the width of the saw blade. Your mark from the template will always be off by the width of the marker you use. Even if you cut and sew directly from your mark, it starts a whisker off. Multiply this by the number of parts you have used templates for, and over the width of a quilt you can be off a couple inches.

Strip cutting allows you to cut with only a margin of error equivalent to a razor edge. I would figure out the size squares I need to cut in half to produce 2 triangles at a time. I think for the long haul, it would be easier than trying to guess how many thread-widths you need to be over from your 1/4"

I used a pen with a ultra fine tip (almost mechancial pencil lead thin) to mark my fabric and cut as close as I possibly can. Even so, like you said it can be a whisker off anyways. But both blocks (though they vary in the number of pieces) came out to about the same size---8 3/8". Technically, if its the margin of error that's messing things up, shouldn't the one with more pieces be smaller than the other?

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

Your blocks are beautiful! I've never gotten that many points to come together so perfectly! I'm impressed.

I'm with the others on the scant ¼". I just try to get a couple of threads closer to the edge and it seems to work pretty well. I'm surprised the one that you pressed with the seams open didn't come out a little larger though. I've heard that pressing to one side is the reason we have to go to a scant to make the blocks come out the right size.

Hope you get it worked out Flying_V because it's sure going to be beautiful when you're done!!

Thanks! That was my first shot at triangles and I guess I did a good job for a first try. :mrgreen:

Quote:

Originally Posted by amma

Flying_V, do you use a rotary cutter and mat?

No. I tried learning, but never got the hang of it. Seemed to waste more fabric than getting accurately cut pieces to come out of it. So I've resorted to pre-cut templates to reduce the number of mess ups since I don't have the money to afford miserably trying to perfect my rotary cutting skills. Actually, fabric for my current projects (Ninja Star and Tsunami) have come from some very generous quilters (thank you again---you know who you are) so my margin for messing up is even smaller so I'm not going to put a rotary cutter anywhere near that fabric! lol.

I have some more pictures of the other blocks. I haven't gotten them uploaded onto Photobucket yet...been a busy, crazy weekend. First, Deni unexpectedly showed up Friday about going shopping for a bridesmaids dress for me so I went for that and passed out after I got home. The next day I went to go see Iron Man with some friends and stayed with them instead of going home so another day without net....got no sleep (I've been up for almost 19 hours straight). And instead of bothering to try and go to sleep I voulenteered to go tag along with Jason and Dan to go help Jason's dad get the tarp shades over the ginsing fields...and ended up getting paid for work that I offered to do for free. Finally was able to buy that cheap straightening iron I had my eye on. :) Now I'm just too tired and not in the mood for uploading those pictures (I'm worn out, yet I'm still going like that bunny on the battery commercials...and so much for a career in hand modeling---getting those tarps up really wore out my fingertips. lol)

In any case, after I get some sleep (hopefully), I'll see if I can get the pictures up on here.

I think I'll be okay with the block sizes. Both blocks turned out to be about the same size.

Here's the other block.

I have pictures of the two sets of blocks sewn together, but the internet is running really slow tonight so I'm having trouble getting these pictures up. I'll try to get the other two put up tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the one I was able to upload. :D
http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q.../100_28782.jpg

Very Nice! I can't wait to see more! :D :D :D