Twin Sister block

12 inches finished

This month's tutorial is by Sharon!

Cutting:

* Red (background) – 1 square at 7 ¼ inches, then cut square into quarters from corner to corner, as in the diagram.

* White – 2 rectangles at 4 ¾ inches by 9 inches

The white fabric can be solid white, white on white, or white with a blue or red print on it.

* Blue - 2 rectangles at 4 ¾ inches by 9 inches

The blue fabric can also be a solid or blue with a white or red print on it.

Think patriotic!

Sewing:

Place a red triangle on top of each blue and each white rectangle:

Sew the triangle to the rectangle along the long side of the rectangle, stopping at the end of the triangle.

Press the triangle open, with the seam allowance towards the rectangle. Repeat for all four rectangles and triangles.

Each rectangle now has a red triangle sewn to it. Sew one white rectangle to one of the blue rectangles in the following manner: Match the rectangles when sewing them together, orienting them so that the short side with the red triangle attached on the blue rectangle is matched to the long side of the white rectangle without the red triangle attached, as in the diagram below.

The finished unit should look like this.

Press the seam allowance to one side.

Repeat this step with the other two rectangles.

Note that the second unit needs to be oriented the same as the first – if you sewed the short end of the blue rectangle to the long end of the white rectangle, you must do the same for the second unit.

This is what you should have at this point: two units oriented and sewn the same way.

Match the center points and sew the final center seam. Press seam allowance to one side.

Your block should now look like this.

Your block should measure 12 ½ inches across.

A little larger is okay too. The Charity Quilt committee will trim all the blocks to the same size.

You’re now going to trim the excess off of those long rectangles, like so.

Just carefully line up the ruler with the outside edge of the red triangle and trim away the excess. Save that triangle!

The last step is to set your machine to a long basting stitch and stay-stitch the edge of those long rectangles. The outside edges of the rectangles are now on the bias and the stay-stitching will keep them from stretching.

Please turn in the triangles that you trimmed off along with your block(s). Thanks!