Long Skinny Triangles

Long skinny triangles -- isosceles -- not my favorite shape to stitch up until Marti Michell introduced the Peaky & Spike Triangle Set.  

I wrote this post when it first came out (HERE) so I know how well it works, but I still wasn't eager to make this unit of the Long Time Gone SAL quilt top!  So I procrastinated it all weekend and then realized late Monday that I was leaving early Tuesday morning on a quick teaching trip to the Indianapolis, Indiana area -- grrr.

The tool set features those brilliant engineered trimming corners so I knew the stitching would go well, but I hadn't cut any of the pieces and I realized during supper that a deer chomped on my young sassafras tree so I needed to spray the entire yard which is ready to burst forth in daylilies flowers (aka, deer candy) before I left town or I'd really be fuming!!

Having secured the garden's bounty for another couple weeks, I decided to try knocking out the piecing before bed since all was packed for an early departure in the morning.

As with any of these odd shapes, the trimming is critical since it simplifies setting up the pieces for stitching!!  No guessing, just align the trimmed corners!!

I ignored the pressing guidelines and pressed one side away from the center triangle and the other towards it.  My purpose was to make nesting the two finished triangle units possible. 

A quick layout and a bit of rearranging for the sake of variety.

And I was ready to stitch the pairs together - love how precise those side intersections are!

Here is the back so you can see the pressing. 

Rather than stitch the diamonds into rows, I set together pairs . . . .  

then clusters of four diamond units . . . . .  

and here is the finished result!!

All together in a little over an hour (yeaa!!) plus I ironed my clothes for the trip!!

(I hope I took a lopsided picture and that the piece isn't actually crooked.)

Once again, I encourage you to wander over to Instagram and check out #longtimegonesal to see what other quilters are doing!!

I also put together the first section of the quilt top over the weekend so it can travel with me and be part of the trunk show Tuesday evening.  I'm using a rather old black print with silver stars -- dates to the early 1990's?  If I remember correctly, the print was inspired by a piece of fabric found in a movie wardrobe studio.  Mary Ellen Hopkins approached her friend Irwin Bear at P&B Fabrics with it and he printed it in several color ways.  Mary Ellen would have loved this scrappy quilt and I like the way the black gives one's eyes a place to rest. 

My pineapple blocks are a little catty-wampus -- not sure why but I'll need to be more careful on the rest of them -- still 13 to go but that's next week!!

Make sure it's a stitchy week!

Mary