Doctor Who Quilt Update #3

Finally! The TARDIS light is finished! It took me quite a few hours over two days to get it just right. Still, it's not perfect. If any of you reading this are quilters and look really close, you will see what I mean. I'm happy with the result though.

The light is made up of 81 pieces. Most of them are 1.5" X 1.5" squares before they are sewn together.  It's hard to work with such small pieces. Plus, the squares are "half square triangles" that have to be constructed from two different fabrics. I started with 2" X 2" square, pinned them together, drew a pencil line from point to point, and sewed 1/4" away from each side of the pencil line. Then, I cut along the line. That resulted in two half square triangles. They had to be trimmed down to 1.5" X 1.5" squares. Omnigrid rulers are fantastic for this job. I have a 6.5" square ruler that was perfect and used an Olfa rotary cutter to trim each piece. In the image below, you can see two sample squares I started with, the line lightly drawn on the cream square, my Olfa rotary cutter to one side, and the sewn half square triangle set under the Omnigrid ruler, ready to be trimmed. They are all sitting on an Olfa cutting mat used with the rotary cutter. It's important to have skills, but having the right tools is indispensable.

Here are some pictures of the light as I was constructing it. The first image shows the first row of trimmed half square triangles before and after I constructed the first (bottom) row of the light.

I completed the first three bottom rows on Day 1 and the remaining rows on Day 2. Here's the light with the last 3 rows set up to be sewn along with the section of the light I had finished up to that point. You can see the light taking shape.

And, tada! Here's the finished light ready to be sewn to the top of the TARDIS. It is 8.5" X 8.5" square and will be 8" X 8" in the quilt.

 

The light square at the center is made up of white, cream and yellow. It's hard to see the yellow in the image above, but a little easier in the close up of the center below where I used a print of white rays spreading out from the center of the square to represent the brightest part of the TARDIS light.

Can't wait to add the light to the rest of the quilt's center. That's right, the TARDIS is the center of the quilt. More to come!