Trimming Triangles

I’ve been participating in a Murder Mystery Quilt since the beginning of the year (to read about it please click here). Each month we get instructions for new blocks, and a chapter of the murder mystery. Here are the blocks I’ve made for January through April:

This month’s blocks contain sixty (yes ~ 60!) 1 1/2″ finished squares – whew! They started out as 3″ cut half square triangle blocks (hst):

and when it was time to trim them up I thought I’d try out the Clearly Perfect Slotted Trimmer™ I purchased a few months ago. The idea behind this tool is to square up the “hst”s before they’re pressed open. The ruler also has short slots along the edge for cutting off the “dog ears” ~ a clever idea!

I laid the dashed line along the seam according to the directions and squared up a few blocks only to discover that they were all a few threads smaller than they should have been. Hmm. So I trimmed the next few with the dashed line a few threads above the seam, and that worked. Now this is just my opinion, but as I continued I found trimming off the corners in the slots a bit tedious. That’s when I decided it was time to pull out my trusty Bloc Loc ruler and make a comparison.

The bloc Loc has a 1/4″ groove along the diagonal that fits snuggly over the seam allowance on a hst that’s been pressed open. It can be centered on the square, and the first 2 sides trimmed:

Next the square is rotated 180 degrees (I like to use a small mat and just swivel the whole thing), and the remaining 2 sides are trimmed at the correct size.

Both rulers did a great job of keeping the diagonal seam aligned with the corners, so points won’t be lost when piecing, and both were easier to use than just a regular square ruler. After making quite a few with each, the Bloc Loc was the one I prefer. Do you have a method you like? 

These hst blocks were combined with new contrasting fabric squares to make them into “split quarter square triangles”:

They are cut at 2″ and will finish 1 1/2″! And they all went together to make the pieced portion of the May blocks! These blocks all finish 6″. Isn’t it amazing how much a block shrinks once it’s sewn together?

But that wasn’t all we had to do. Each block had a yellow rectangle added to it. Here are my completed May blocks:

I love the bright colors of all the blocks, but with all the variety I can’t imagine how they’re going to come together in the finished quilt. Thus the mystery! Stay tuned ~ there are more blocks to come!

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And… here are just a few photos from the Art Walk in Watertown last week. We’ve had a LOT of rain recently and Tuesday night was no exception. Fortunately it was only “spitting” at the start, so Mike and I walked up and down Main Street enjoying all the art work – and the shops. Each year banners are painted by residents and hung up and down Main Street. This one captured the essence of the “Art on Main” program:

And this banner was flying across the street from my quilts:

The banners will be on display all Summer.

All the local schools had student work on display in different storefronts.

And chalk drawings were scattered up and down the sidewalks.

The 90 year old Main Street bridge is being rebuilt, so there was a detour along the walk, but that just added to the adventure.

As we reached the end, the rain was increasing, and I found my favorite bit of sidewalk art. Isn’t this drawing lovely in spite of the raindrops? It convinced us that it was time for dinner at Mullens Ice Cream.

Yum. It was a very pleasant evening.

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And I just need to share one more yummy photo. The quilter who runs the murder mystery put out a challenge to the participants. We were to make a Greek recipe (since the mystery takes place in Greece), and post it this month for extra credit. I tried my hand at baklava, and here it is with my blocks (do you think I could call this “block-lava”?)

The pun was bad, but the baklava turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself ☺️.