Swirly Pinwheel Tutorial

Pin It

Yesterday I showed you this little 12 inch wall hanging as part of the Think Christmas blog hop and today I'll give you a tutorial of how I made the blocks.

I started out with a charm pack of Jovial by BasicGrey for Moda. The cardboard backing from any charm pack is perfect to make a template out of.

First I cut a 2 1/2 inch square. Use a old blade in your rotary cutter when cutting paper or cardboard.

I then marked a line diagonally across the template. Now mark a dot 5/8 inch up from the bottom corner.

Use a ruler to draw a straight line from this dot to the upper right corner.

This photo shows what you have just drawn.

Cut on that line.

I cut my 5 inch charm square into 2 1/2 inch squares. Then place 1 white on each red square with right sides facing each other. For this tutorial I am just using 2 colors of fabric. Note: you could always use scraps from your stash too!

Follow the diagram, lay your template on top of the square, mark a line and then stitch on the line.

Press your block and trim. Be sure and press all of the blocks with the white (background fabric) to the top.

Now lift the top white layer and trim the 2 bottom layers. You now have 1 section of the block.

Sew 4 sections together as shown. You could also use different fabric as I did in the wall hanging and mix the sections.

Depending on how you sew your blocks together, you can get a completely different look. This is also why it is important to have all of the blocks pressed in the same direction. Look at the example below.

Always press so your Pinwheel fabric is on the bottom and your Background fabric gets pressed away from it.

I made 8 blocks for the wall hanging and used a 4 1/2 inch square in the center.

My flower was made using my Sizzix Big Shot but you could use any design in the center. The die I used is called Tattered Florals by Tim Holtz. The Sizzix Big Shot makes it fast and easy to cut floral shapes.

I have included a flower that you could use in the center. I then quilted my wall hanging and used 2 strips of 2 1/2 inch fabric for the binding.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and I can see all kinds of different possibilites for this block. This block size is 12 inch, I forgot to mention that. Do you like tutorials with lots of photos?
 
Don't forget that the Think Christmas blog hop is still going on, you can click on the links to the different blogs and they will open in a new window.
August 2
Grandmama's Stories
Sandra Kaye Designs
North Hills Quilter
Lv2sew
Quilty Doodads
Quilting in South Carolina
The Raspberry Rabbits
Charise Creates
Traveling Quilter
Nancy B at That Other Blog
Selina Quilts