Hi! I’m Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. Take a look at this great quilt behind
me. Isn’t this fun? I mean, it’s just really fun. It’s based on the same block
we did when we made Falling Charms. Falling Charms was such a hit, I wondered what would
happen if we did the same type of this to a triangle-- to a half square triangle block--
and it’s just adorable. So let me show you how to do that.
So, to make this quilt, what you’re going to need is one packet of 10 inch squares,
and we used Poppy Panache by Ann Lauer with Grizzly Gulch for Benartex, and it’s just
a beautiful line. It’s a very happy, pretty line. So you’re going to need one packet
of 10 inch squares and that’s forty-two 10 inch squares of color, one of solid (that’s
your background squares) and then you’re going to need some 2 ½ inch strips, and you’re
going to need close to seventy. So that’s more than one jelly roll, but not quite two
jelly rolls. So their just 2 ½ inch strips cut. You can use yardage if you want, and
it makes an enormous quilt. This quilt is so huge. So just with those precuts you’re
going to get a quilt that is 90”x108”. I mean, this is a big quilt. So if you need
a king size quilt, this is your ticket right here, and it goes together really quick and
fast.
So this quilt is made making... using ½ square triangles, and we’re going to them the same
way. I love to do ½ square triangles. So we’re going to put two squares together,
light and dark, and this is our background square and then our colored square. We’re
going to put them right sides together; we’re going to sew all the way around the outside
edge ¼ of an inch. So let’s go do that.
So we’re heading over here to the sewing machine. I like to just line up my presser
foot on the edge of my fabric, and just sew down. People ask if it is ok to sew off the
end or if you have to turn to pivot. Honestly, either way works great. It’s just whatever
you like. And I’m just sewing all the way around this ¼ of an inch. Alright, so now
you can see, right here, that I have sewn this all the way around here ¼ of an inch.
And if you get your seam allowances right and your cut straight, these blocks-- it’s
just a dream to make these half square triangles. So now you’re going to take your ruler and
you’re going to line it up right here between this stitch line and you’re going to follow
it all the way up here between this stitch line. So we’re going to cut is diagonally
both directions. So, here we go. And you want to make sure that your squares don’t move.
If they do, line them back up. And then you come to the other side and we’re just going
to start this again. There we go. Now we have four ½ square triangles. Just that easy.
So, we’re going to bring these over to the ironing board and iron them open. I like to
start with my dark on the top. That way, your seam allowance stays to the dark side. Let
me go ahead and iron these back--get that string out of there--and you’re going to do this with each one of your blocks. So
you’re going to have forty-two, forty-two of these, of, of the blocks. Then each block
is going to make four. So that’s, oh, one hundred and sixty something. It’s a lot
of blocks. So you’ll have forty-two of these blocks, like this. Then, you cut them into
fourths and you’re going to get four times that many.
So then what we’re going to do is, we have to border our little half square triangles,
and we’re going to sew a 2 ½ inch strip on this side and a 2 ½ inch strip on that
side. So, I like to just take my strip and I’m going to lay my ½ square triangle on
here and I’m going to lay it on here color side to the edge. We want to add the strip
to the color side of the triangle. So here’s our triangle right here and we’ve added
our strip to the color side. So I’m going to, we’ll go do that over at the sewing
machine. And if you want to chain piece these, you can do that by just all your, all your
½ square triangles on the strip and just sewing down. I’m just going to do one so
you can see how it, how it works.
So now I have this one and I’m going to clip off these little bunny ears here and
trim this up here so it’s nice and straight. And then we’re going to press this open.
There we go. And now we have one on this side. Now, we need to add a strip to the other side--also
the other color side--and we’re going to do that right over here. And we’re going
to take that over to the sewing machine. Alright, so now we’ve bordered two sides of this
block and the block is done. That’s really all we need to do. So I’m going to trim
that back, and I’m going to trim this little ear off over here, these little bunny ears,
and then we’re going to press this open.
Ha, so now you have a block that looks like this. You’ve sewn a strip on each side of
the color part of the triangle, and you’re going to do this to all your blocks. Then
the fun comes in the layout. So let’s take a look at this layout that’s behind me right
here. So in this top row there is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten, eleven, twelve across the top and fourteen down the side. That’s how we laid ours out.
And you want to look at how ours go, because it goes up this way and then the next one
is going to go down. They kind of come together. And then, this one goes up and this one goes
down, like this. And, I’m a little angle-y challenged, so I have to look really carefully
at what I’m doing. Now, the second row is going to go up, but it’s going to point
the other direction. So then your down block is going to go this way. So each row goes
a little opposite. And this one is going to go up and this one, let’s get a different
one here, this one’s going to go down, like this.
Alright, so you want to watch your layout. Now the fun thing about this layout, though,
is that when you are putting a quilt together, you really can’t get it wrong. So, if you
decide you want to run all these little triangle blocks going one direction, that’s going
to look awesome. If you run one row one direction and one row the other, it’s going to look
awesome. So, have a lot of fun with this layout. And, you know, try to be creative. Try several
different things. You make them up with a whole new pattern that you just love. So,
we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the Toss Triangle block from the Missouri Star Quilt
Company.