Make way for Pineapples!

At this point in the process of making Long Time Gone, I had two last sections to make, the Log Cabins blocks and the Pineapple blocks.  I decided to address the Pineapple Blocks first.

I needed 16 Pineapple blocks. They have a finished size of 5 inches, and each block contains 33 pieces. It seemed like a big mountain to have to climb.  The pattern includes a printed pattern to paper piece the Pineapples, but I was hoping to find a better option.  (All that paper to tear out at the end?  Not if I can help it.)

I found the perfect solution in this new-to-me ruler:

It's called the Pineapple Trim Tool and is made by Creative Grids.  I asked my local quilt shop to order one for me.  I couldn't wait to try it out, but before I did, I gathered all my scraps from the blocks I had made so far.  I had quite the collection by now.  There were all these Light fabrics,

all these Dark fabrics,

these leftover triangles from the Flying Geese blocks,

these leftovers from the 60 degree triangle blocks,

and a whole basket of 1.5 inch squares that I had cut along the way from anything that was too small to use elsewhere.

For each Pineapple block, I started with one of the 1.5 inch squares for the center, and sewed a scrap of Light fabric to each side.

Here is what I ended up with:

Then it was off to the cutting table to try out the new ruler.  I lined up the central square with the white box on the ruler and trimmed the first side:

Then rotated the block 3 more times and trimmed each side until I had a nice square in a square.

How cute are these?

At this point, I took one of the centers and finished the Pineapple block, just to learn how it all worked.   I did the other 15 blocks in one batch,  assembly line fashion.

After the first round of light fabrics is done, you sew a dark fabric to each side:

This time, you trim using the other part of the ruler.  You line up the center square on a black box on the ruler and trim two sides:

Then you rotate the block and trim the other two sides:

Now I had 15 of these little darlings all ready for the next round:

I added another round of Lights, and another round of Darks.  Even with the ease of the Quick Trim ruler, it took me more than an hour to sew, press and trim each round.

Here is one more round of Lights completed:

And one more round of darks.  The  untrimmed blocks were now bigger than my test block.  Surely this must be the last round?

Nope. Not yet.

One last round of Lights:

At last it was time for the final round of triangles.   I wanted to save myself from having to worry about two  triangles ending up next to each other in the final arrangement, so  I went through all my dark fabrics and cut one triangle from the corner of each one.

At last I was ready for the last step.  One final round of sewing, pressing and trimming later, and I had finished my 16 Pineapple Blocks. The whole process had taken about 4 days, but I am very happy with them, and think they were worth it.

I'm also very happy to say the my scrap pile actually did diminish. These blocks really are scrapbusters. Here is what was left of my Light fabrics when I was done, and I still have the Log Cabin blocks left to make:

With 33 pieces of fabric in each block times 16 blocks, there are 528 pieces in the Pineapple blocks,  bringing the total number of  fabric pieces in this quilt to over the 2000 mark!

Number of pieces in the Pineapple blocks:  528
Number of pieces in the quilt so far:    2175