Green, but a red block repeated

Variegated Sedge in a pot on my balcony

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month's colour is bright and light green. This is unfortunately all the green I can show this week!

Do you remember I showed a photo last week of the kaleidoscope block in red, that turned out the wrong size.

6.5" finished size

Well, this week I made another in the same colour scheme using the same pattern.

6" finished size

But this time it's the right size. I used the same paper-piecing pattern from Sew Mama Sew, but changed the size. I had printed the pattern again, but couldn't change the size on my printer. The photocopier at my work can change the size of documents, but the setting works on percentages. No advanced mathematics here, I'm afraid, as I just couldn't remember the formula for converting a vulgar fraction into a percentage. (Please feel free to tell me if you know; I knew it once too!)

Highly unscientific mathematics now:

What I did know was that:
6 1/2" is 1/13" larger that 6"
1/10  =  10%
1/20  =  5%
Therefore
1/13  =  somewhere in between (highly scientific!!) but closer to 10% than 5%. Let's try 8%.

So I set the photocopier to -8%. Bingo! The sewing line on the outside of the newly printed block is exactly 6".
If you try doing this

BEWARE: the distance between the sewing line and the cutting line is NO LONGER 1/4 ". 

The difference is negligible but just to be safe I cut the pattern out using ruler and rotary cutter (old blade) and adding 1/4" outside the sewing line.

I'd like to thank those of you who commiserated, and offered suggestions for possible uses for the oversized block. I was toying with the idea of making my own design following the design-your-own-quilt tutorial by Sarah Schraw at Sew Mama Sew(again!) and this will be the basis of my first block. All orphan blocks now go into their own box to be incorporated into my design. I had too much going on when the Quilt Along started in April, but I've taken pencil to graph paper and have made a start. I shan't be relying on orphans, but will be making most of the blocks deliberately to fit into the design. The next large project has announced itself!

After all this powerful maths I didn't get round even to looking out green fabric, let alone making any blocks.

I'm linking up to:

  


so head over there to see what else has been going on in quilting land.

Happy sewing

Marly.