What's a girl to do with a day off from work?

Had the day off today and my 80 year old Singer 99 was all fixed, oiled and ready to roll...

so, what's a girl to do?

Why, piece and quilt, of course!

After trying the first 48 HST called for in the April Civil War Chronicles BOM on Triangle Paper, I cut out the other 48 HST's with my AccuQuilt Go! with a little help from my DS...

(My apologies this is sideways!)

With the windows in the dining room and living room open, a slight breeze, sunshine warming my back, chain stitching was a pleasure!  The notches on the ends of each HST makes it EASY to create perfect HST's that are square right away.

Good 'ol Bessie (that's her name) was humming away!

I have my two piles of separate colors - the light upside down and the dark face up, laying the light on top of the dark, right sides together...

(Oops again!  This time, my DS's allowance is in the pic - sorry!)

Here's two sets of HST...can you tell which ones are AccuQuilt and which ones are Triangle Paper?

Look for curved, pointy edges and

look for notched edges....

Can you see the difference now?

Even though the triangle paper HST's went together faster initially, I now have to cut the notches off both edges - that's 98 cuts with a rotary cutter.  Normally, no problemo, right?  It is, unfortunately with an injured right thumb muscle like mine...so the AccuQuilt that are ready to go are my choice...it's on the right:

AccuQuilt HST result:

Here's how I press to get a good result, using Harriet Hargrave's advice:

Place the light color up and spray with starch (I'm using Mary Ellen's Best Press and Harriet Hargrave recommends Faultless Spray Starch)  I like to spray with my left hand to 'save' my right hand for other tasks.

With your left hand, pull the starched light colored fabric to the left while you press.  I use the German-made Rowenta iron.

Here are my AccuQuilt Go! HST's:

Here are the Triangle Paper HST's - they've no notches

and I've used cream thread so you can easily see the difference.

A bit curvy after having used the "pinch and pull" technique...

These are more challenging to press for me:

Oh, dear...this is a wonky one!

After trimming:

Now for our April Civil War Chronicles BOM...

Square in a square is challenging for me...I'm not sure why...flying geese are fine....?

The trick to it is to make sure the you open your first corner before placing the new 2 1/2" square down upon your darker 4 1/2" square....

I marked carefully with disappearing blue marker designed esp. for fabric...

I trimmed 1/4" carefully from the edge...

Short on one side and long on the other is my result...hmmmm....

Here's the other side...

and these are the pieces for the left side only of one of the eight blocks for this month...

I really love the colors of these fabrics being used together.

Best of all, Mother tried out the eighty year old Singer 99 today...and....

...she loved it!

She was able to repair my DS's rain jacket.

Nice Mom, eh?  :-)

She said it was just like her Grandma Block's Singer, except that this is electric and 

Grandma Block's was a treadle.  She was able to thread it and work the machine immediately - Mother said it was like riding a bike!  Once you've done it, you never forget!  :-)

Happy biking and sewing!!!

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