Eleanor Burns Is My Hero

Pinwheels!

Draw a diagonal line on the back of a fabric square.

Place right sides together with contrasting square.

Sew 1/4" to the left of the pencil line.

Turn fabric and sew 1/4" to the left of the other side of the pencil line.

Cut down the pencil line. Open up your squares. Cool!

Make another set.

Trim corners of seams. Press seam to the dark.
I ended up using a different set of squares in the rest of the photos. The large floral is my dark fabric.

My pinwheel layout. It's placed so the seams are pointing counterclockwise.

Flip the top right square face down onto the top left square.


The seams should be pointing different directions. Sew the center horizontal seam. Repeat with the bottom two squares.

Now you have a stitched top row and bottom row.

Flip the bottom row onto the top row, lock the center seams together, and stitch.

I have to confess, when I sewed the bottom to the top, the fabric shifted by the time I reached the center seam and my points didn't match up. I ripped it all out (with the help of the thread tangling and making a big ratty mess). Second time around, I started stitching just north of the center seam, stitched to the end, turned the square around, picked up at the beginning of the seam, and finished sewing to the other end. The result:

Pretty darn good for my first pinwheel.


But, the back side is pretty crappy looking.

From the raw edge, pick out all the center seams up to the last seam that was just put in. Finger press clockwise all the seams in the square (they should be pointing clockwise already). Work the center so that all those joining edges of fabric open up clockwise. Finger press open, then iron it.

WHEEE!

One down, three dozen to go!