Hi everybody. It’s Jenny from the MSQC. Today I want to talk to you about this Triangles
Around the World quilt. This is a simple half square triangle quilt. And it’s one that
I show in my trunk show and I realized that I didn’t have a tutorial on it. When people
started saying, Where’s that tutorial? Where’s that tutorial? And so we wanted to do a tutorial
and show you how to do the Half Square Triangles Around the World. So let’s take a look at
this quilt behind me. So, I mean it’s beautiful for one. I love it. It’s a simple design
and goes together easily. Great fabric line. We’ve got, we’ve got eight blocks across,
ten blocks down. We’ve got a 4 ½ inch finished border. To make this quilt you’re just going
to need one packet of ten inch squares. You’re going to want to make sure that there are
a lot of lights and darks in the pack because you want to put those evenly together. You
also are going to need about a yard for your outer border. Since it’s only a 4 ½ inch
border you don’t need that much. This is going to give you a quilt that is about 57
by 69, somewhere right in there. The fabric that we used today is a Shimmer pack. And
it’s by Jennifer Sampou for Robert Kaufman. And I mean it’s just a beautiful line as
you can see from the fabrics behind me.They’re just gorgeous. So again this is a basic half
square triangle quilt.
So what we’re going to do is we’re going to take two squares. A light from the pack
and a dark from the pack. We’re going to put them right sides together. And we’re
going to sew all the way around the outside edge of this. So let’s head to the sewing
machine and do that. You’re going to go a quarter of an inch and just sew all the
way around the outside edge. Now people ask me all the time, Do you sew off the edge or
do you pivot? It just depends how fast I’m going. If I’m going so fast I can’t stop
then I sew right off the edge. But if I’m going a little slower, then I pivot. More
often than not I’m sewing off the edge. Alright here we are at the end. And we’ve
got our little pieces right here. And what we’re going to do now is we’re going to
take this and we are going to cut it diagonally corner to corner. And this is going to give
us four half square triangles. So there’s one cut and here’s the next cut. It’s
always easier to not move your fabric. And then we’re going to press these open. So
keep your dark fabric on top. Go ahead and set the seams, roll them back. And I just
like to press them so the seam is on the dark side of the fabric especially when you’re
using lights and darks because that will hide that seam allowance in there.
So once you get all these ironed you’re going to make sure that they’re all the
same size. And we went for 6 ½ because that is the closest to the size we want to use
as much of the block as we can. And this is pretty close but it might need a little squaring.
If you find that your block needs a little bit of squaring, what you’re going to want
to do is you are going to want to find the diagonal line on your ruler. You’re going
to line that line up along the seam right here. And you are going to make sure that
the outside edge of your block is on the 6 ½ which is what we’re going for in this
block, a 6 ½ inch block. And you can see we have just a little bit of squaring to do
here. And that, it really will help if they’re all the same size. So if your seam allowance
was perfect and your cutting was perfect, you won’t even need to trim these babies.
But mine was, mine had a little bit of, must needed a little bit of work because I’ve
got a tiny bit of trimming to do. Alright.
So then what you’re going to do to make this quilt behind me, what’s really fun
about this is this is all in the layout. It’s exactly how it’s laid out. So I’m going
to clear some room here. I have some other blocks already made here. And what we’re
going to do is we are going to look at this center block right here. We’re going to
put our lights together. Four lights together. You can do it lights or darks. On our quilt
we did lights. So we’re going to put those lights together like this. So here’s our
lights. And then we want to add rows around them. Now it’s great if you have a design
wall. I use the design floor, you know I have, that’s where I have my biggest room is on
the floor. And so I will start laying these out. And it’s just how you turn them that
gives you the pattern. So these are our darks right here. And we’re going to put, we’re
going to put our darks in just like this. Now see how this, see how it’s starting
to frame around it, just like this. And you keep putting your darks and darks together
and your lights and lights together because this row, what we’re making now is this
first row. And obviously mine on the quilt are a little bit more mixed up than this.
Although this looks pretty cool. So here is this row right here. And then this next row,
you can see it’s kind of zig zaggy. And as you start putting those blocks in you will
fill in that to make with your lights to bring this out and make the next light row. Just
like this. And they keep peaking just like that. Here’s one over here that’s kind
of a, it’s still a light. You can see we have some in here where, you know, they’re,
it’s a little questionable but they’re still lights and then we have this row here.
So once you’ve got it all laid out just how you like it. Then you need to sew it together.
So what we’re going to do is we’re going to sew it together by row. So just for the
sake of showing you I’m going to go ahead and put this up here and make a full row like
this. And then what I’m going to do is I’m actually going to pick up this row. And I
do that by sewing these two seams together. And these two seams together. And I know this
is the top one and this is the next one. So I’m going to take them to my sewing machine
just like this. And I’m going to sew those two seams together just like I picked them
up. There’s all kinds of methods for picking up your quilt. Honestly I get so confused
that I rarely pick up more than a couple at a time. And then I’m going to go back and
make sure they’re still in the right place because it’s way easier to check than to
pick. Oop, there we go. Yep, we’re still in the right place. So then you’re going
to sew that together and you’re going to have the whole row done. One of the things
I like to do when I sew rows together is when I press them I like to go ahead and press
from the top like this so that I make sure that there’s no folds. And then I’m going
to flip my row over. And I’m going to make sure that all my seams are going one direction.
So I’m going to press them all this way. All these big center seams I’m going to
press them so they’re all going one direction. On the next row I’ll press them the other
way and that will enable them to nest. So now you have a row done, you can pick up the
next row. You’re just going to attach all your rows together and pretty soon you’re
going to have a really awesome quilt.
Now the fun thing about this quilt is I use the lights and darks in one pack. You can
see what happens if you use a solid for one of your squares because these rows become
very pronounced. And the borders just pop right off of there. So it can have a very,
very modern feel. Also if you take this square here and say you started up here in the corner
and then you lay your blocks out like this it’s going to be a whole different look.
Or what if you start your block on the side and come out this way. I mean, the whole thing
there’s just so many things you could do. So many layouts. It’s just how you lay them
out together. But either way half square triangles make an awesome quilt. And this one makes
half square triangles Around the World. So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial from the
MSQC