I have to confess to being an extremely lazy piecer who plays the game "the one with the fewest seams" wins. I started quilting just before the rotary cutter made its debut, so at that time there was a lot of emphasis on how to make things simple. Needless to say, I have been amazed at the intricate piecing techniques of the card trick over at the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge. But I do have to protest when quilters claim that piecing the card trick on the diagonal is easy.
In particular, I remember back in the late 70s when Mary Ellen Hopkins advised us to tip blocks on the diagonal to look for easier construction. And she often used the card trick block as an example.
This is what I would call the easy way to assemble a card trick block. Because I have an abundance of 1.5 inch strips, I made the pink card trick block using a one inch grid. Admittedly, if you are making your card trick to meet the size requirement at the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge, you will have to adjust your measurements. For the turquoise card trick, I cut 2 inch squares and 2 by 3.5 inch rectangles and my final card trick block came to 6 5/8 inches square...overshooting the 6.5 inch mark by 1/8 inch. Of course, your results will vary and you will want to cut, trim or sew accordingly.
2 comments:
Great Card Trick Star and thanks for the easy way tutorial for making this block - one I have to confess I have never made but now may give it a go!
That's the way I learned to do that block. The first time I made it I was using Eleanor Burns' pattern "Winning Hand", and that's how she did it. When I saw it done the hard way, I wondered what people were thinking?
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