I made this square and my points dont come together...Im frustrated. What did I do wrong?

I think its because you didn't use a scant 1/4 inch seam

Also, it looks like your half square triangles are not square and they are not all the same size. This is very important when you are making pinwheels.

I thought I was using the 1/4 inch and I measured and re measured my square. Ill ripp out and see what I can do. Thanks sharon

Try pinning. I know, I hate it too but sometimes it really helps.
Pinwheels are rather hard I think.

Make sure where your points come together you have 1/4" to sew other wise you will sew in part of the point, if you don't at the point sew a little less than a scant 1/4".

I'm not sure how you put the triangles together, but try this. Cut a green square and a print square at least 1/2" larger than the block is suppose to be with the seam allowance. Place them face together, draw the line from the left top corner to the right bottom corner. Sew scant 1/4" inch on both sides of the drawn line and then cut down the middle. You will need 4 of these to make the whole block. Press the seams and trim to the size you want them to be. I hope I have confused you.

I think I would press your seams different too. Press all seams to the dark fabric.

Ditto to all that was said before. But the pressing is very important when making something that has so many intersecting seams in the middle. Press them going all the same way around in a circle. Then the seam allowance is distributing the bulk around and it makes it lay right. (This has to be done while you are making the block pieces to make the block.) So, when it is put together it swirls in one direction.
Pressing is a big part of quilting. I use a dry iron and pressing is an up and down motion. Don't scrub! bias will grow and distort very easily.

What method did you use to sew your HSTs? When your HST is done, do you check that it is square and that each half of the triangle goes perfectly into the corner. Your HST on the bottom left seems to be spot on - the one on the bottom right shows more of the solid green than the pattern where it comes to a point.

Then you seem to have taken a bigger bite than a 1/4" when sewing the two sides together.

You may want to try a paper-pieced version for a change. Or, sew them oversized and trim them down. Don't forget, if you sew them oversized and trim, you must align the 45degree line on the bias where the triangles meet. If you just square the block without that alignment, you'll end up right back where you started.

Don't worry, HSTs can take a while to get perfect.

http://www.allthingsfrugal.com/pinwheel.htm

This site really helped me get my pinwheels to look much better. Not perfect, but usable.

Thank-you so much for the sample pic and for not being afraid to ask about your mistakes...I learned a couple things from all the wonderful responses.
yep still learning.

I think you do need to pin.

If the last seam you sewed was the up-down one in the picture, then just sewing over this seam taking up more seam allowance should fix this problem. When you are making a seam deeper, you can just sew again -- no need to rip out the first one.

If the last seam you sewed was the left-right one, then it looks to me as if your seam allowance was too small when you sewed the two half-square triangle blocks together. You would have to rip out the last seam, then re-sew the remaining two seams with a wider seam allowance.

Also, it looks as if these blocks got a lot of handling. Starching before cutting and/or starching when ironing seams should help prevent the pieces from being stretched out of shape.

Over the weekend I picked up a little magnet gadget that sits right next to your machines needle after you measure from the needle what size seam you want, I am hoping this helps w/ my scant 1/4 seams. I have a older kenmore so its not computerized, I would be leery to to use any magnet on a computerized machine, I have heard both ok to use & not ok to use...not sure.

it looks like the fabric wasn't cut on grain and the edges got a little stretched out.
then where the hst came together to make points, that 1/4" went missing because of the stretching.

i always get into trouble if i do not square up each square before sewing it into a block. Try this. If i square up to 3 or 3 1/2 inch, or whatever to make them all even, they will be matching up.

I do the same thing Prism.

Hello What is a scant 1/4 inch?

Go to the tutorial section of this board - there is a tutorial or 2 about how to make these.

I agree, blocks weren't squared up first and your seams are all different sizes....hang in there, just takes alot of patience :thumbup:

No Magnets ever! cannot emphasize this enough. if you want a guide, get painters tape, slice into the roll and remove a 1/8-inch-deep chunk and stick this on the machine as a guide.

I teach quilting and have also found that by making half square triangles this way it leaves enough that you can square it up. I think you will only need to do 2 squares.

I found that out. I have a question. I have a Singer machine and how do I tell where the 1/4 mark is to put my edge of the material against when I sew. Mine is not marked.
sharon

I would like this explained a bit too. I know what the words mean, but in theory how do I do it? I use a 1/4 inch foot with a rail. If I don't have the fabric bumped up against the rail, that makes sense, but then how do I keep the scant 1/4 inch consistently scant?

I bought one of those little magnetic strips. Brought it home, put it on my sewing table and I haven't seen it since!!! So I just practiced and practiced until I get my scant 1/4" seams at least 95 % of the time.

Pressing (with an up and down motion) is very important when pressing seams and blocks. The pressing surface needs to be firm, not soft like a mattress because the fabric sinks in and is stretched out of shape. The right hardness of the pressing surface is a layer of COTTON batting covered with a layer of canvas or ironing board fabric. I learned this by experience and a video by Sharon Schambers tells you about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LGbXou_u4c

THis will help in addition to the other suggestions that have been offered.

Good luck, accuracy comes with experience!!

first thing I did was break that little rail thingie off..hated the thing. now I can run the edge a hair off the fabric to get a scant quarter inch. works every time.

:thumbup:

To measure 1/4 inch, you can put your needle down and use your metal measuring guide against the needle, put masking tape down perpendicular to the needle, and use it for a guide. A scant 1/4 inch means 1 thread or two less that the 1/4 inch. When you press the seam to the dark fabric, it seems to use up a little of the measurement. There should be some tutorials about pinning the seams so that they end up matching exactly.

Slightly less than 1/4/ inch.

Hi, I have been searching for tutorials on the pinwheel and found what I think will help you a lot. This is the web address. www.connectingthreads.com/tutorials/Pinwheels-Intro_to_HSTs__D4.html. Hope it helps. When you sew the two sides together to complete the block, use the nesting technique, where you have the seam on the top squares, pointing up and the seam on the bottom squares pointing down and as you sew, it will push the top seam right into the bottom seam and thus your center seams will match exactly.

Brother makes a really neat quilting 1/4" foot that probably will fit any machine. It's hard to describe, but the front of the foot is cut away on the right side and you line the fabric edge with it and if you keep the edge of the fabric alligned with the foot, you have a 1/4" seam all the way. I found mine at Walmart and it was around $11 or $12. It was worth it for me because I have so much trouble getting the seam 1/4" and I have tried many different things. This works.

I have an 1/4 inch foot but still cant line it up correctly. So do you line the material up to the edge of the foot or the metal plate. maybe thats what Im doing wrong. I wish the machine just had it marked 1/4 and I would have no problems.

Line the fabric up with the edge of the foot. On the brother foot, you line the fabric up the same way, but it is "indented" or cut out, so it's kind of like the foot is only 1/4" wide. If you can, google it or stop in at walmart and look at the foot to see what I mean. sorry I can't be more helpful, but I don't seem to be able to describe it very well.

Here is a link-
http://www.amazon.com/Brother-SA125-.../dp/B0007XOEV6
You line the fabric up with the indented part of the foot.

I love using Thangles when I do HST's. They are quick and almost always are perfect in size.

Pam in WV has the best solution I have found in stitching on the bias. Hold two sqs RST and stitch 1/4" each side of line. This helpw to prevent stretching the bias on each single triangle section. I also found a few times that if I traded corners some how it worked. In other words switch left corner (wrong looking piece) to right corner. and the right to the left and restitched together.

So if my squares look off, that means I have cut them on the bias or not cut them on the bias. I want to do my quilts right. So how do I tell which is the bias and when to cut on the bias? Sharon
Sorry for all the questions, but maybe thats why my sqaures are out of wack.

You will know the bias by holding corner to corner and gently pull a little, bias will pull, I would take a scrap piece of fabric, it will stretch. I would follow the lesson on all things frugal, someone put a link to that site on an earlier post. Just save it in your Favorites so you can refer to it as much as you need to. Once you do it exactly like she tells you, you will learn how to do it. Once you get it, you will laugh at how easy it is.
I hope this helps.

Thank you very much..