QST progress and block building

Since I got both sets of my HSTs done for my Romantic Garden quilt done (YAY!), this weekend was the time to start working on getting my QSTs (at least the first set of them!) built.

I had gotten the pairs sewn together the same time as all of my HSTs and got them cut apart. I didn't trim just yet so I had as much wiggle room as possible to properly center the "X" of the QST block.

When I make QSTs, I do not cut corner to corner -- if you do this, you might end up with triangles that aren't right angles at the center! I make sure to cut perpendicularly to the seam and align it with as close to the opposite corners as possible without distorting the cut from being perpendicular to the seam.

Here's all of my QSTs pressed but before trimming.

I trimmed all of these while watching baseball on Sunday. One of the nice things about HSTs vs. QSTs is that at least some of the time you can get away with only trimming two of the sides if you have one "square" side to start. With QSTs you have to trim all of the sides and worry about making sure that your block center stays in the center once it's trimmed.

I don't have a 3 inch square ruler to easily trim, but I was able to line up the center of the block with an "intersection" on the ruler and then line up the diagonal of the QST with the diagonal of the ruler. And ta da --- 52 QSTs!

I went ahead and cut the 3 inch squares for the rest of block A (this is a two block quilt) and laid out one entire block to see how it will look.

I think it looks a little bit like a four leaf clover in the center with the dark greens. Now to sew all of them together!

Linking up at Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, and WIP Wednesday!

Don't forget that we are nearing the end of our Row Quilt QAL! There's still plenty of time to participate!