New Tricks

Normally when creating string quilts, I let the corners happen organically. When a triangle fills a corner, it's sewn on and that section is complete.

With this yellow and M&M top (what should I call this, anyway?), however, I wanted the corners to be fairly similar in size, which meant 

*gasp*

planning!

For the first few blocks I used my usual ham-handed method of laying the triangle face up in the corner, carefully turning it face down along the long edge, then scooching the triangle a 1/2" back toward the corner again before sewing it down and hoping for the best. There had to be a quicker way, one with less trial and error.

Bonnie Hunter's Essential Triangle Tool to the rescue! I wasn't very scientific about this: I looked through the corners I had completed so far and found a couple I was happiest with, flipped the corner piece back so I could see the seam, then lined up the ETT with the hypotenuse so I could figure out what line would give me that result again (I really wish now I had taken pictures of what I just tried to describe.) In this project, the scant 1-1/4" spot (using the red lines) fit the bill. Square up the ruler to the raw foundation corner

and the bottom edge is where the triangle hypotenuse goes (these measurements assume the standard 1/4" seam and all dog-ears intact. Again I say: this project.)

 

I'm embarrassed to admit it took me several more corners before I realized I could use the ETT even more efficiently. At first, after getting the bottom edge lined up, I'd place a long straight edge on the diagonal to determine if the point was centered.

If not (and my eyeballing was usually closer than this picture indicates), more scooching was in order until that point did line up along the diagonal, then the triangle was finally sewn in place. After a bit I came to my senses and realized the ETT had a second measuring point I could use along that hypotenuse line. For this project, a well-centered triangle would have one of its corners hit at the 1-5/8" area:

After that it was off to the races! This new use also confirmed any suspicions of skimpy areas that needed another strip before a corner could be applied:

Had I tried to attach a corner at this point, only an eighth inch of that ziggy-zaggy fabric would've been caught toward the end of the seam.

The happiest surprise about using fabric foundations is that there are no exposed seams! I could see that as I constructed the blocks, of course, but the implications didn't hit me until I was ironing the joined blocks. All my previous string blocks abound in exposed seams

which makes ironing a tedious task of checking and double-checking that a seam hasn't been accidentally pushed the wrong way and pressed into place. But with a permanent foundation:

ironing bliss! The only spots that posed a potential ironing mis-press were the corners from which I had deliberately trimmed the foundation. I knew they could get bulky once all the blocks were assembled. Quilting this will tell me whether trimming was a help or a waste of time. Stay tuned.

Finally, with this being a small (for me) project, I decided I'd give Bonnie Hunter's webbing technique a try. It seemed simple enough "on paper" and it was in real life too.

But here's where I found I disliked it: once everything is webbed, you're forced to deal with the weight and bulk of the entire quilt from that point until its completion. While sewing row 1 to row 2, for example, I was still having to rearrange and make room for rows 3, 4, 5, and 6 on my sewing table, even though they had nothing to do with the rows I was currently handling. If I had attempted this technique for the first time on a large quilt, I'd've been extremely annoyed with myself for "falling" for this!

I'm glad I tried it, regardless. Now I've confirmed I'm happiest with my usual method of creating small segments and joining them up gradually until there's only one seam through which I'm 'wrassling' the entire quilt. I take a photo for reference if there's a chance/fear of losing my place or forgetting the layout, which seems to be the only reason for webbing blocks: keeping the plan intact.

Next stop: Backing-ville.