I'm making a pinwheel play quilt for a friend who is about to have a baby. I'm trying to remember my steps as I do certain blocks to make it easier the next time I do them. Doing pinwheels goes faster than other blocks and I love the way they look, especially for kids.
Here I've added the photos of how I start. I've cut all my pieces by figuring out how many times I use a specific fabric and then cutting TWO squares of 6 7/8" for each 12" block in which I'll use it. I cut those diagonally in half. I lay out each block as it will appear and pin the triangles of coordinationg light/dark fabric (i.e., the ones that will go together to make up the upper-right quadrant, lower-right, lower-left & upper-left) right sides together along the longest edge. I then chain-piece sew them with 1/4" seam allowance. Chain piecing helps soooo much. It makes it go much faster.
My least favorite part of quilting is cutting fabric. I'm not as accurate as I'd like to be so I often overestimate and then trim down/square up afterwards. To do it all at once requires patience on my part, but it also gets it all done with in one go!
So you can see the chain piecing and the I cut the threads, remove the pins and stack the pieces. Then I iron the quadrants open, seam allowance going towards the dark half of the quadrant, and place them on the cutting mat to trim off the tags or tails. You can do the two tags of each quadrant at once, but be careful to make sure the edge of your ruler lines up with the entire edge of your quadrant so you don't trim the tails on a curve. When in doubt, trim less than more.
I then lay out each quadrant as it will be sewn to make the block. And take the upper-right quadrant, lay it, right sides together, on the upper-left quadrant and pin along the adjoining side. You will sew down this side with 1/4" seam allowance to make 1/2 of your block. I usually do this to all the blocks at once, allowing me to chain-piece sew them again and save some time. I lay out each block as I want it to look because I can get confused at to which piece joins which and on what edge. This way, although it is a bit time consuming, I make less mistakes.
I'll upload the rest of my process once I'm done sewing the blocks together to make the top of the quilt!
