Pinwheel Popper Quilt Along: Week 3

Week 3 of our quilt along begins today! I’m loving seeing your blocks so keep posting and tagging me on instagram!

Edited: The quilt along is finished, but you can still read all of the posts from previous quilt alongs at the Quilt Alongs Page.

Videos for this week

No new videos this week. Since all the blocks are the same, all the videos from last week apply to this week as well.

I will be adding videos throughout the quilt along. You can view all of the currently available videos at any time in this playlist.

On the schedule for this week

This week we’re going to make 5 blocks. You can see my five blocks in the picture above. I’m using some gorgeous fabrics from Meander and Make (affiliate link). I used fabrics from Clover and Ethereal for the quilt I’m making for the quilt along (affiliate links).

What to do with the waste from the snowballs?

Since we don’t have any new instructions for the blocks. I thought I’d talk a little bit about the half square triangles that are left when you cut the corners of your snowballs. I did get a few people asking me about this. I don’t have a specific plan for those. I thought about adding some sort of small project for these into the pattern. BUT, there are a few issues with that:
1) Those half square triangles aren’t consistently sized, at least not if you use my method for speeding up the process of de-cornering your snowballs. WIthout a consistent size, it’s hard for me to write a formal pattern for them.
2) I’ve always thought 1 at a time half square triangles were super tedious. This is my issue to deal with though, so if you like them, go for it!

Even though there isn’t a formal pattern, I drew some diagrams to give you some ideas if you do want to do something with them. If your triangles aren’t a consistent size, you can still work with them. Just measure all of them and use the size of your smallest triangles as the size your trim them down to.

If I was going to make something with the de-cornered pieces, I’d probably make the quarter square triangle hour glass blocks. Here’s what you do:
1) Lay out (2) Color 1 pieces and (2) Color 2 pieces as shown in the diagram below.
2) You’ll sew the right angle sides of the triangles together as shown in the diagram below.
3) After you get the block assembled, press with starch. You won’t have to sew any bias seams together to make the blocks, but your finished block will have bias edges. The starch will help motivate these bias edges to be more cooperative for you.
4) After you finish all of your hour glass blocks, measure to find the size of the smallest block and square them all to the nearest 1/4″ increment below the size of the smallest block. The size you need to square them to will vary depending on your seam allowance and how consistent you were with that. It will probably be somewhere around 6-1/2″ to 7″. It’s important to note that you can’t square hour glass blocks the same way you square half square triangles. I do have a demo on my hour glass method. I also demo how to square hour glass blocks. You can watch that video HERE. The part about squaring the hour glass blocks starts at about 4:44.

Each Pinwheel Popper block will give you enough leftover pieces to make two hour glass blocks. So, you’ll be able to make 32 of them. I would problably add in 32 solid blocks in whatever size you end up trimming the hour glasses to for a quilt that alternates between hour glasses and solid blocks. You’ll end up being able to make a quilt that is 8 blocks by 8 blocks.

There are also a whole bunch of different blocks you can make with half square triangles. If you want to make your half square triangles more consistentlhy sized, you can. Here’s how:
1) Draw a line on your Color 1 squares and stack right sides together with the Color 2 rectangles as directed in your pattern.
2) Sew along your drawn line as directed. So, far it’s not any different than what the pattern instructs.
3) This is where it gets a little different. After you sew along your drawn line, you’ll sew another line 1/2″ to the outside of the first stitch line.
4) You’ll cut a 1/4″ seam to the outside of the first stitch line, essentially cutting those appart between the stitch lines.
You’ll end up with your snowballed rectangle plus a fairly neatly cut half square triangle. You will probably still want to trim them, but the sizing is still much more consistent than if you used my speedy method from the quilt along playlist.

There are several ways that you can arrange your half square triangles to make blocks. I have just a few of them pictured below, but the possibilities are practically endless.

There a few more half square triangle layouts that I want to talk about. These are a little interesting.

Even though those blocks picture above look a little different individually, when you put them together, they make very similar designs. You can see this in the pictures below. When you only use two colors, all of these blocks form a design that looks like squares on point. In the pictures to the right, I erased the seam lines and made the background purple so you can see it better. The finished quilt mockups look so similar that it’s hard to tell which mockup is for which block.

Now let’s take those same 4 blocks and mockup them up with different foreground colors. You can see in the pictures below that it’s a completely different look. So, that’s something to think about.

Note: You won’t be able to get that many extra half square triangles from your snowball waste. I only used that many in my mockup to have enough to you the different between a two color version and the one with more colors.

Get a custom label for your quilt

I had some labels made for this pattern! If you want a custom Pinwheel Popper label with your name on it, you can get one! I order all of my labels from Melanie at Southern Charm Quilts/Meander and Make. They are great labels. You can get order your Pinwheel Popper Quilt label HERE (affiliate link). Use the coupon code SNUGGLEBUGSTITCHING at Meander and Make for 10% off.

Each Week on the Blog

I’ll link to all of the other weeks near the end of each post. I will add each post here as I have them. You can also find this on the Quilt Alongs Page.

Week 1 – Gather Fabrics & Cut Pieces
Week 2 – Make 5 Blocks
Week 3 – You are currently at the Week 2 post
Week 4 – Make 4 Blocks
Week 5 – Make 2 Blocks, Assemble Top

Prize for this Week

Our prize for this week is going to be a set of Clips and a Fabric and Project Folio Case from Missouri Star Quilt Complany (affiliate link). They typically have several of their notions marked down, and you should definitely check out their daily deals. This one is for US winners only due to shipping costs. If the winner is an international quilt alonger, I will send you the PDF pattern so you don’t miss out on getting a prize.

To be eligible for prizes:

– You must be following me and all our sponsors on Instagram and post at least one progress picture for the week on Instagram by Tuesday at 5:00 PM Central Time. You must tag me @snugglebugstitching in your posts and use the #pinwheelpopperqal and #pinwheelpopperquilt.
Here are the Instagram accounts you need to be following to be elligible for prizes:
@snugglebugstitching
@southerncharmquilts
@meanderandmake
@benartex_fabrics
@missouriquiltco
@cutloosepress
@checkerdistributors

-I will announce the winner on Instagram and tag the lucky quilt alonger so that they know they’ve won. The winner will have one week to contact me to claim the prize. Any unclaimed prizes will be forfeited.