The Penultimate Sugaridoo QAL Row

Turkey Tracks: September 27, 2020

The Penultimate Sugaridoo QAL Row

One more row to go! And that row will combine with a row already finished and not yet attached. These two rows will come at the green end of the quilt and are in the aqua blue family.

This penultimate row is the funky log cabin pink row, the second from the pink top. On the solid version, I followed Sugaridoo’s method—which I found to be more difficult than was needed. So, on the Cotton+Steel/Ruby Star version, I tried another method, and I liked it far better. See below.

Sugaridoo’s method makes a long strip where the strands are placed and sewn on a 45-degree angle and from which the 6-inch square of strips is cut. But it is very hard to keep the 45-degree angle consistent—so the strip can get wonky really fast. Plus, it requires a lot of sewing to even get to the point where you can cut the first block. I was sure I was going to run out of the pink fabric that came in the kit before I got all 8 blocks done. And it was darn close, I can tell you.

So for the second version, I cut out 6-inch blocks from very thin paper (old phone book pages or newsprint), drew a random 45-degree angle and sewed down strips that way. This method means you can use all the short pieces that form as you sew toward each corner. The 45-degree angles are easy to maintain, and the block is easy to trim up when you’ve covered the paper.

I do like this block a lot and think I’ll end up using it again down my quilty road.