Ocean Waves QAL Part 3

I hope you all are making progress in your cutting.  

I thought for those that may be ready to begin making their blocks I would do a post showing construction of the quarters needed to make the block. 

 It was kind of late last night so pardon the poor lighting!

First up is to sew your HST (or half square triangle) units. 

 There are a LOT of them! 

 I know that I like to sew some, trim some and put some together 

so that is what I will be showing here. 

 You can then go at your own pace as far as how quickly you want to put your blocks together. 

 I plan to have regular check-ins and show my progress, and would love it if you would link up and show everyone else how you are doing too!!

Alright, let's get down to construction, shall we?  

Since I am using navy and white fabrics I will refer to the white as my background.  

Your background may be different. 

 I am using navy for my second color and again yours may be different.

If you remember you should be cutting your background and colored squares at 3" for the HST units.  I sewed mine by sewing 1/4" on either side of the middle, and no I don't draw a line, I use the Clearly Perfect as you can see in this photo.

I sewed up six sets of HST units. They become 12 when cut apart.

Once I sewed them all, I cut them apart down the center. 

 I opened them up and pressed them to the dark side.

These are all my HST that I need to make an entire block.  Four sets of 12 HST

Next up came the trimming.  I LOVE using my 2.5" Bloc-Loc ruler to trim all my HST units. 

 I also use the heck out of my little 12" turning mat.

I centered my ruler over my HST, locking it into the seam and trimmed two sides, spun the mat,

 and trimmed the other 2 sides.

 The pile of trimmings sure pile up!  Wonder if the birds would use these for nesting in the spring?

Autumn was sleeping on the job!  To be fair, as I said earlier, it was late for both of us!

I really wanted to be able to do this post today though.

This is how one quarter of the block is laid out ready to sew.  

All of the blocks are sewn the same as this one.  

(Yes, trust me they really are)

 I did have a discussion with someone recently about the block construction.  

As you can see there are 12 HST for each quarter of the finished block.  

You are looking at 1/4 of an Ocean Waves block here. 

 In addition, there are 4 2.5" squares per 1/4 of the block.  

The math works out that for one Ocean Waves block you will need 48 HST units and 16 squares.  Please know this is certainly not the only way to construct an OW block, 

it is just the way I am choosing to do it.

OK, back to work.  

Next up, by row, I sewed together the first pair and the second pair in each row.  

I pressed the seam open. 

 I did this because I feel it makes matching the points easier 

when it comes time to sew the rows together.  

I then sewed the pairs together to form 4 rows.

Next up is sewing the rows together.  This can be slightly tricky.

  I tried to show in this photo that I put a pin at the point of the triangle. 

 This pin would go through the point on the triangle on the opposite side

 (see what I mean about ease of viewing?)  

I pinned each intersection and both ends. 

 So, I sewed row 1 ==>2 and row 3==>4.  Again I pressed open.  

You can see that the points matched up quite nicely!

Nest I sewed these two units together to form my final quarter of the block.

This was the second one I made last night. 

 It took me ~2.5 hours to make these 2 units. 

 I did have all my squares cut.  I just thought I would give you a time frame.

  I am not rushing, I fully intend to enjoy the process!

Once you have 4 of these units sewn

 it is time to sew them together to form the actual Ocean Waves block.

Please note in the photo the placement of the quarters to form the "circle".  

Also note that they really are the exact same units just rotated to form the actual block. 

 I do confess this is from a test block I had made previously though, as it was past my bedtime!

Once you have all four units you may sew the top two together and the bottom two together. 

 I pressed these seams open. 

 Then you will sew the top section to the bottom section.  

You now have one completed Ocean Waves block!!  

I am dying to see how everyone is progressing so please link up here and show me.

Don't forget to use the #OceanWavesQAL on social media too.

Have a fun and productive weekend!

~XOP~

Please link up your progress here using the blue "Inlinkz" button.

If you don't have a blog maybe leave a comment, so we can see who is playing along.

An InLinkz Link-up