Magic Pinwheels

Who’s with me in thinking that sewing is like doing magic? If you’re not convinced, I hope that this month BOM will make you see what I see. 

Here is what to do:

✂️ Cut two 12inch squares, one red, one solid white.

✂️ Wrong RIGHT sides together, iron the squares together, it helps them ’stick’. Then draw diagonal lines from each corners of the white square. Find the middle of each sides, and draw one vertical and one horizontal line.

✂️ Go to your beloved sewing machine, sew a seam on each side of the diagonal lines, 1/4inch away from the line.

✂️ Back to the cutting mat, slice the blocks on the marked lines. You now have 8 HST (half square triangles).

✂️ Using your magic wand, press open the triangles toward the red fabric. Alternatively, you can use an iron, making sure you don’t distort the squares while pressing. Clip the little ‘ears’, so your squares are neat and assemble them in 2 pinwheels blocks.

✂️ Trim one of the pinwheels to 9 1/2inch.  In order to make it even, you might want to align your ruler to the 4 3/4 mark with the centre of the block.

✂️ Trim the second pinwheel block to 10 1/2inch (5 1/4 inch mark of your ruler on the centre line).  Slice the block into three 3 1/2 inch stripes vertically, and horizontally.  You have now 9 squares, 4 of them consisting of 2 stripes, one red, one white.

✂️ With everything else staying as it is, apply a 180-degree rotation to the striped squares.  Sew the squares back together.  You will obtain a 9 1/2 inch block.

Now, do you want to see more magic?  Combined together, the 2 blocks we just made will create a secondary pattern.