Western Windmills

Windmills Wall or baby quilt

This week I've been playing with traditional pinwheel blocks.  They are reminiscent of the towers and vanes of the iconic windmills that still fill stock tanks and cisterns across the West.  

The pinwheel/windmill blocks are made from half-square triangle blocks.  My favorite method of making the half-square triangle blocks is Triangles on a Roll.  www.trianglesonaroll.com  These nifty paper strips take all the marking out of making the 72 blocks this design requires, which  shortens the time between the "windmills in my mind" and windmills in the cloth.

This design is destined for the Send-It-Home shop in West Yellowstone, Montana.  www.send-it-home.com    My prototype quilt is made from the 2006 RJR fabric line Cowboys and Cowgirls along with some from my stash.  The top is pieced, so after I get the seams pressed we'll take a picture and post it. 

Notes on piecing from the stash:  first, there are fabrics that don't stand the test of time.  Some fabrics that were the best we could get twenty five years ago really aren't acceptable now.  They are too harsh to the touch, too loosely woven, and occasionally just plain unattractive.    Second, some of my carefully folded and stored fabrics have creases that don't "press out" easily.  Argh.