Oh, Pershing, you tricky trickster! I had no idea what I was in for when I set out to make you! This block was deceptively difficult! In the beginning, it starts simply and innocently enough — adding some half-triangles to the four corners of a 3.5 inch square. I can do this! But the deeper I went into the piecing, the more I started to doubt myself and how things would turn out.
One issue I wasn’t really thinking about at the outset, was keeping the block square, and how important this would be to the final outcome. The more precisely each “layer” is pieced, the better chance that all of your points will match up as you add the next layer of triangles.
Another aspect of the piecing that gave me anxiety was not knowing exactly what size each finished layer should be as I completed it. As long as I had a 1/4 inch seam allowance on each completed square, I had to trust that in the end my block would come out to the required 9″ (and it did), but I would have certainly felt more confident if I had some guidance on this along the way.
It was challenging to make sure that the points on each triangle were centered and all pieces were symmetrical. But one tip I found (clearly a little too late!) was that if the seams of my previously pieced square matched up with the seam line of the triangle I was attaching, then I could be sure that my point was evenly centered. I’m not sure if that makes sense, so heres a picture I snapped with my phone of what I mean, here:
See how the seams of the triangle I am attaching are laying on the open seam lines of the previous layer’s diamond shape? That was really helpful in making sure things were symmetrical.
But the greatest challenge for me, by far was piecing the triangles (for those with the pattern, triangle pieces D and E) to form a strip, which is then joined to each side of the block. Thankfully, when I saw Daisy’s post on her pretty Pershing block over at Ants to Sugar, she linked to a very helpful post on Riddle and Whimsy that made completing the block possible for me. I was a complete novice when it came to “dog ears” and sewing triangles in general. I had been trying to line up the triangles end to end, and as anyone who actually knows about sewing triangles could tell you, they looked absolutely nothing like a strip. It was a frustrating disaster!
I am really grateful for all of the help I received from people posting tips on completing this block on their blogs! And if there is something that anyone has learned from my experience with this “easy” block, then I am grateful for the chance to contribute to someone else’s endeavor in the same manner!
