Perfect Pinwheel Center

 I'm working on making a pattern that requires a bunch of pinwheels.  
I don't know about you but I have always struggled to get my centers "perfect".

I think I stumbled on a way to do it!

I'm going to share with you now.

I did starch my fabric first, I find this helps everything stay nice and flat.

I made my initial squares  larger than I need so I can trim the finished block to size.

I started with 1 colored and 1 white cut at 6".

I put them right sides together and stitched 1/4" all the way around the squares.

I cut on the diagonal once.

Then I cut on the diagonal the other way.

You can see that this gave me 4 HST,

Next up was to press.  

I pressed to the dark side.

I trimmed all the dog ears off each of the HST

So now we have 4 pressed and ready to sew HST.

Pretty pinwheel.

I put the top 2 HST right sides together and the same with the bottom and 

sewed 1/4" along where I was pointing.

This is what it looked like all sewn.

I then pressed the seam to set the stitches and opened up the seam to press both of them open.

First I pressed on the back, then I flipped it over and pressed from the front.

You can see here I put a pin in the top where the seam needs to match with the one on the bottom.

I then put the same pin into the seam on the bottom.

This is how I want them to line up when finished.

I also pinned both blocks together where I will begin and end, so they are lined up.

Here is where the magic happens!

I used a few dots of Elmers washable school glue where you see it on the bottom.

I left my pin still in the seam.

Now I had piled up all my FQ on my ironing board and that was perfect for the next step.

If you don't have a pad, you could put down some batting or use a wool pressing mat.

Remember that center pin?

Well after I put the glue, I pinched it together with my fingers and took it to the ironing board.

I pressed that center pin in to the pad (in my case fabric) on my ironing board.

Leaving the pin stuck into the ironing board, I took my hot iron and set the glue by pressing where I had the 2 pieces stuck together.

You can see the iron is up against my pin.

This dries the glue and makes your center so it won't move when you sew it!

NOW you may remove the pin and voila, you are ready to sew!

You can see how I pinned both ends to get things to line up but there is now no pin in the center.

Time to take it to the sewing machine.

I am sewing a 1/4" seam and as you can see I'm about to sew over my glued center.

Your stitching line should be just at the point like in this photo.

Because we glued that bit you will need to gently open that up before pressing the seam open.

It doesn't take much force, just gently open that area.

Once you have that opened then finger press the seam open.

Follow this by pressing with your iron as shown.

I like to turn the block back over and give it a good press from the front too.

Just look at that center!

PERFECT!!!

Now you can trim your block to whatever size you need.

I hope you find this tutorial helpful.

Please share with your friends!

~XOP~