Sunrise, Sunset QAL: Sewing Squares to HSTs

Seems like I have very little time to work on quilting these days.  Tuesday was my only day this week to work in my studio without major interruptions.  I'm hoping life will settle down soon.  I want to get this project done so that I can move on to other things, like finishing a turkey wall hanging before Thanksgiving then making another full-steam-ahead effort at reducing my Christmas fabric stash.

So, onward with the Sunrise, Sunset project.  This next step is simple, yet it's the most challenging step in the project.  Each half-square triangle unit gets sewn to a square of equal size.  Easy-peasy, right?  The sewing is easy, the challenging part is getting the triangles turned just the right way.  This is when a color diagram (or sample block) and a pressing guide are invaluable.  I usually draw mine on post-it notes that I stick to my sewing machine.

My post-it note system has worked great for a good 15 years or more, even when I had kitty helpers inspecting everything.  Who would have thought that a little chihuahua would throw a monkey wrench into my system?  This summer, Trudy learned that she could jump on the arm chair then walk across the side table, jump onto the file cabinet and from it jump onto my L-shaped sewing table.  Once up, she prances over all and pokes her nose into every container looking for things.  Once she finds something she approves of, she snatches it with her teeth and runs off quick as can be.  Her favorite things seem to be spools of thread (not empty spools, they have to be full) and balls or skeins of yarn.  I swear she must be half cat!

Sometime during this project, Trudy took off with my little post-it note guide.  I couldn't find it in my studio and not wanting to walk back to my trailer (where my computer is) to make another, I decided to rely on my memory and sew anyway.  I'm paying dearly for that decision now as I try to sew units together that have triangles and seams going the wrong way.

Below is a copy of my original pressing guide that also serves as a color placement guide for this block.

Basically, there are four placement arrangements in the next units.  One block requires two of each.  I've arranged them below into groups that I've been calling the "white kitty" and the "red kitty."  For the white kitty, a dark square is sewn to the light triangle of a HST, and a light square is sewn to the light triangle of a HST.  The seams are pressed toward the light triangles.

For the red kitty, a light square is sewn to the dark triangle of a HST, and a dark square is sewn to the dark triangle of a HST.  The seams are pressed toward the squares.

I sewed enough of these units on Tuesday to make 5 blocks.  I'm hoping there's no 7-hour power outage this weekend like there was last weekend so that I can get the rest of these units sewn.

Oh, remember that missing post-it note?  I found it later stuck to the bottom of my shoe.