Half Square Triangle - HST

At the moment I am teaching 3 beginners patchwork classes in one day - I do like a challenge!

I teach all my beginners how to make half square triangles (HST). They are the most versatile building block in patchwork and lead easily to lots of different designs.

I thought I would collate some fabulous quilts made using HST as their base unit as inspiration for all those new to HST!

From Red Pepper Quilts

Love the mix of solid colour and bright patterns!

From Sew Katie Did

This quilt is a wonderful mix of HST in solid colour, no plan just go for it!

From The Cottage Mama

Love the mix of colour and the geometric shape.

From Quilt Addict

These stars are so lovely!

From Freshly Pieced

This scrappy HST quilt is divine!

Hope you find this gorgeous collection of quilts just as inspiring as I do!

Triumphant Triangles!

It has been an age since I last blogged - Scout Camp, end of term, weekend in London at the Fat Quarterly Retreat and 5 days camping with the boys!

Phew I have packed a lot into the last 2 weeks!

Do you remember the equilateral quilt in really bright colours?

Well, it has gone on it's 4 week trip around Europe with my best friends Helen and Tom.

I loved working on this quilt. The mix of colours and designs made me smile every time I got it out to work on!

I quilted straight lines around 1/4" from the seam - don't look too closely, the mismatched seams are really obvious!

I raided the last of my large yardage from Pink Castle Fabrics sale section for the backing, with some of the remnants from the front added. The binding was made up of left over fabrics sewn into a strip.

It has left today on a mammoth 2500 mile road trip. Hopefully it will be loved and used for lots of lovely picnics!

Quilt stats:

Size - 55" by 57"
Fabric - lots of brights
Wadding - 100% Cotton
Thread - 100% cotton Aurifil wt50 in White

A Riot of Triangles

I am in love with the colour of this quilt!

The triangles have been so much fun to make!

In the sunshine it looks like a wonderful fabric window panel! 

Makes me smile.....

Hoping my lovely friend Helen loves it too when she is travelling through Europe this summer!

WIP: Triangles!

This week has been all about triangles!

There have been 2 different types - equilateral triangles and right angle triangles!

First up are the equilateral triangles. I love cutting these, there are kinda of theraputic! I think that must be the mathematician in me!

They are coming together quite quickly, but I am running out of time! They are going away on half term and I wanted them to have it with them. Best get my skates on!

The other triangles are the right angle triangles I shared yesterday. I put the blocks together into a mini quilt top, which one of the young ladies in my after school club has fallen in love with, so it had a home even though it's not finished!

I do the umbrellas and they are very summery in my studio today, when the rain is falling!

More triangles to piece and a car to pack for class this evening!

Might need to investigate more triangles tomorrow...

Linking up with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced!

Not on the plan...

You know how it goes.

You write a plan for the week of things you need to get done.

I put a star next to the important high priority things...

Written in my red book that I carry everywhere to jot down notes and ideas. This is a lovely neat page..

Then you start to wonder how it would work if you pieced 2 rectangles in the way you piece HST... you start to think about it a lot...

Next thing you know, you are pulling fabric from the stash..

They are quite subtle. Pinks, baby blues and white.

Next thing you know a block has developed:

It is incredibly girlie, but you still keep going:

And then there were 4.

Need another 5 to make a complete patchwork top...

See what I mean?

Totally wandered off plan and ended up with some gorgeous blocks for the summer!

At least I am showing some continuity with my obsession with triangles!

Linking up with Let's Get Acquainted at Plum and June 

WIP: Design

This week I have been slowly putting together the equilateral triangles for my lovely friends quilt:

I have spent 2 weeks cutting lots of triangles, but I there still aren't enough!

I plan on sewing a row a day in the hope that I will manage to fit the quilt into my busy schedule and get it finished for my friends holiday in May...

I have also been working on a new block design for the Bi-Monthly Block of the Month that is starting in July at Prema Arts Centre. This one was a tough one to put together and I don't know yet how to teach it...

It does look pretty groovy though!

Would love to see your work in progress this week!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced:

Triangle love!

I have the most amazing friends - the kind who take all 3 kids in an emergency and give you a hug when you need it..

One of them, Helen, has been there so many times - including driving me home after I broke my ribs in a fall last year. She is one of the few people who gives me a hug when I achieve something and when I need one!

I have wanted to make her a quilt for ages,  but her house is kinda perfect and I didn't want to make a quilt that didn't fit in... it worried me too much!

But this year they swapped the lovely VW camper for a big, shiny new motor home thingy -I haven't been in  it, but it scares me when I am reversing on her drive, her husband would kill me if I hit it by accident!

Perfect opportunity to make a picnic/comfort quilt for their trips away and it can be bright as it is for holidays and fun! Yay!

So this morning I have pulled lots of lovely colours and some prints I have been hoarding - I know it is a shock to you that I hoard - and started cutting:

I love the selection and the bikes I have been saving for Helen's quilt as it says summer holidays to me!

I have been chopping equilateral triangles out of the fabrics - they are lovely! They are 5" from base to apex.

They are so lovely! I am a bit of an order freak with quilts and fabric - there has to be order and I like to break the colour up with creams and white. So of course I started this design with cream..

But I want to try something new so the cream has been ditched:

It is starting to come together and it is making me slightly nervous, but I am just going to keep adding colours into the design and see what happens...

Really stepping out of my comfort zone.... what's the worst that can happen???

Backing it in brown!

A little while ago I posted a blog about an idea I had for using up the triangle scraps from the Snowball quilt I am currently quilting.

These little triangles are small and worth using (what fabric isn't worth using), but I didn't fancy sewing them together in the traditional way to make blocks.... I had an idea to quilt them as I go onto a white background, and since money is tight I had to use the fabric in my stash to back the quilt... hence the brown backing!

As you will know if you follow my blog, I have been pondering Autumn colours this week and the brown fits into the colour spectrum, but it is a washed out kinda brown so it wouldn't have made it into a starring role on a quilt.

Today one of my lovely sewing girls didn't come to class and as I had set up her machine and my one young lady was working on free motion designs, I thought I would get started with my idea...

It was a bit haphazard in the planning stage, because space and time was limited, but I managed to get the 3 layers together and started to quilt the scrap triangles:

I have used my walking foot to go around the outside of the triangles starting at the tip and then move onto the next one by quilting through the middle of the triangle to the next one.  So I have a chain of flying triangular scraps:

I have now pinned all the triangles into place on the front so that they trail across the quilt. The backing is looking really good with the trail of quilting:

So far I am really pleased with the experiment!

Have you tried a new method recently?