BLOG 485

Blog 485

 

And didn’t it rain last week?!! Such extreme weather conditions prevented any serious outdoor activity so I took full advantage of the extra indoor time that came my way and I went happily and enthusiastically into my playroom. I made great strides with my half-square triangles, so much so that I went on and finished the quilt top. And then it occurred to me that I hadn’t explained the simple process I used to prepare my half-square triangles. It is a tried and tested method and it made a good hand sewing project for me. Here is a brief outline of the method.

 METHOD

 

1 Cut lots of 5” squares, the more variety the better. Place a light square on top of a dark square with RS together and draw a diagonal line, corner to corner, on the light fabric.

 

 

                Squares

 

 

2 Sew a ¼” seam (by hand or machine) on both sides of the diagonal line. Press to settle the stitches before cutting along the drawn line to separate the triangles. When opened out you will see two half square triangles.

 

              Press

 

            Diagonal cut

 

            Two half square triangles

 

 

3 Prepare a pile of these to give an interesting variety of colours and textures in your quilt. On the WS, iron both the seams towards the dark side. Iron on the RS to make sure there are no tucks along the seams.

            Press from light to dark

 

          Prepare a quantity

 

 4 Trim all the squares to an accurate 4½”. (There is no point in trying to join together squares that may differ slightly in size; it is always advisable to trim.)  

 

            Trim

 

5 Join 4 prepared squares together to create the 8½” square building blocks for the quilt top. I sewed half with all the light triangles together and half with all the dark triangles together, plus one to give me 49 squares. (See blog 484)

 

               Join 4 together

 

 

6 Place the prepared blocks onto a design wall and play around with them until you come up with a layout you prefer. I chose to alternate my light and dark centres and I used a calico joining strip (cut at 1½” x 8½”) in between them. Sew the squares together to create lines and then join the lines together to create the quilt top.

 

           Create lines

 

 I pondered last week about adding a corner square (1½”) between each horizontal strip and, after trialling it on my design wall, I decided that it was the right thing to do. I chose a softly coloured medium Batik for the purpose and I liked the effect. Once that decision was made, it was then just a case of concentrated effort and many sewing miles on the sewing machine to get it done!

 

            Corner square fabric

 

            Effect

 

              Finished top

 I really like this quilt which will end up measuring 64” square. It only needs layering and quilting now and it will definitely be ready for the Gresford Show in June. Sadly it has barely scratched the surface of my fabric stash so I now need to carry on reducing that with some easily cut and constructed Linus Project quilts!