Week 4
Join us and welcome, petthefabric!
Week 4: 4-patches. 72 units in cream/teal. (#1 & #3)
It's an easy one this week, probably the easiest of all components. 4-patches are this week’s units. We are making a bit oversize again and trimming down. You have a choice. You can cut your strips at 2 1/8 inches and trim off a bit, or cut them at 2 1/4 to make sure that you have enough, but will wind up cutting off a bit more. I’ve heard that some people don’t like cutting 1/8 inch increments, but I don’t have any trouble so I’m cutting at 2 1/8 inches. Whichever size you use, cut 8 strips of cream and the same number of turquoise. (Or if you’re doing scrappy, cut 144 squares of each color.) Sew the cream strips to the turquoise strips along the long edge. Press the seams to the turquoise and be sure that your strip sets are as straight as possible. I drew a line with a sharpie on my ironing board cover and block my sets against that.
Crosscut your strip sets at the same measurement that you used for your strips. You will need 144 subunits. Take 2 subunits, rotate one, and put right sides together. If you pressed to the turquoise, the seams of the subunits will nest if you’re doing it right. If they don’t, your turquoises may be on top of each other and we don’t want that! Sew into 72 units and press.
Trimdown is much the same as the previous units. You won’t have a diagonal, however. This time align your seams to the 1 3/4 lines on the ruler. Trim top and side, then rotate the unit. This time make sure that your trimmed edges are on the 3 1/2 inch marks as well as the 1 3/4 marks. Trim top and side again.