I just love the high contrast I’m finding in all of these black and white quilts I’m
seeing right now.
So I had to try to make one of my own.
And as complicated as this quilt may look believe or not it’s all simple half square
triangles.
I’m going to walk you through all of the blocks to make your very own.
Let’s get started.
That’s right, we are working from five by five inch pre cuts today.
We’ve got this one which I love.
Maywood Studios In the Black, right?
And then some Kona solid white.
I want that high, high contrast.
And the thing I love so much about this black on black print as you look through it they
are all really reading as black.
So they’re nice deep saturated fabrics and that’s why I chose those from Maywood, ok?
And we’re going to basically just unpack them all and we’re going to make a million,
oh maybe not quite that many half square triangles the easy Jenny Doan method, right?
So you’re going to take your black fabric and your white fabric, one of each.
Take them and lay them right sides together.
And then technically just stitch with a quarter inch seam allowance and I used that little
pinked edge as part of the seam allowance all the way around all four sides.
So you can’t even get inside like you see here, all four sides have been stitched.
Now one of the things, because we don’t want a lot of bulk in the corners, I like
to go in and dogear my corner.
As a nice little trick.
So I’m just using my rotary cutter and carefully cutting those off there.
That will help with a little bulk management.
And now what I’m going to do is I’m going to lay my ruler right where the threads cross.
So these threads are going to cross right here and right here.
Take a second to make sure I have it just the way I want it.
And I’m going to make one slice like this.
And I’m not going to move my fabric at all, I’m just going to lift my ruler, drop it
back down where those other corners threads cross over.
There it is, so just on the crosses.
Move my body and I’m going to cut so that I have now made four what look to be triangles
but because that white is underneath there, they’re half square triangles ready to rock
and roll, ok?
Take them over to your ironing board or surface.
Just hang onto the black corner.
And that way as you press you’re technically pressing to the dark side.
So we’ll do a bunch of those.
And I love to get all of my fabrics prepped at one time so that I can go through and design
all of the blocks we are going to need for this crazy high contrast quilt behind me.
My only rule I”m going to use today is when I am touching my fabrics together I won’t
allow the same black print to touch itself.
So anytime where two triangles come together like these two from the same square, right?
I wouldn’t use those next to each other.
So that’s just one thing to think about as we’re going to through getting these
all prepped out.
And then in a second we’re going to show you how to build the blocks.
So check this out, now originally and I guess still today, right?
This quilt is named Stars, Stripes and Diamonds for that reason because even though they’re
all half square triangle blocks these are the three different units or blocks that we’re
going to make to create the quilt behind me.
The quilt behind me is actually made in quadrants though to make management easy.
And you might be thinking to yourself, I don’t even see it, what is the quadrant?
So check this out.
Follow me to the quilt if you will.
Find my center line up here.
And now watch as I come down here and over this way.
All of this area right here is one of those quadrants, ok?
Now we’re going to have one, two, three, and four quadrants within the entire quilt,
this size.
But also we have in each quadrant we have the center which is a diamond.
We’re going to have one, two, three, four stars and one, two, three, and four stripes
also coming together in each quadrant.
So it’s basically nine squares building a quadrant together, ok?
So let’s start by showing you how to make your center diamond block, right?
So you’re going to take this and we’ve got a printable below that shows you the pictures.
I’ll hold still so you can look at it there as well.
And now what we’re going to do is we’re just going to take a bunch of our half square
triangles and I like to start on that center diamond.
So I’m going to build my white center diamond at first.
And you see here how those two circular black prints came together.
So that’s a no go for me.
So I’ve got to pull that one out so all four black prints are technically different
as it goes around.
Now for this one of the easy ways to start to follow is try to build this striped effect.
See how it’s coming together, the stripe is starting to follow its way around this
way.
Let’s move that one up because that would be the same print touching again.
You can always go back at the end and randomly look at them and adjust them too.
OK, so do you see the diamond here starting to form there?
Ok and then when I can come and do is drop in these corner blocks but it’s actually
just that white stripe forming just like that.
Ok so that’s your center diamond.
And again for each quadrant you need just one of those, ok?
So then if that’s the diamond.
Let’s talk about the star next because the star, let’s put it here first.
You can see this also starts with that same white center.
So we can just pull these out of the way.
We still have that white star diamond there in the center.
And then from here what we’re going to go ahead and do is we’re just going to build
out our points of the star by creating these new white V’s that you see come together.
So technically I’m just rotating these, oop I don’t think I got it right.
See the little tips coming together and touching like that?
Ok, so then we’ll do it over here.
And over here.
And then it’s still black to the outer corners.
These are going to slide right back in there like that.
Something doesn’t look right, this one is not right.
That’s what it is.
My eyes were playing tricks on me again.
So this and this I needed to go this way and this way.
There, that’s much better.
So make sure that you definitely take the time to double check before you start sewing
them, right?
And when you go to sew them at this point I leave them right on my cutting board or
my design board.
And then I’m just going to take them over and I’m going to run my quarter inch seam
allowance and bring the next one over.
Because that way I can actually bring them right back to the design to make sure I’m
keeping them all in the proper order, ok?
Hopefully that made some sense.
Now the last one we need to show you how to do is the striped block.
So again, here’s your stripe block.
And this one is real easy because you’re just going to start with that black corner
we had over here.
And then like we did on the diamond block we’re just going to create stripes of color.
Same print came together so I want to change that.
See how that’s starting to work like that.
I’m going to finish that side out.
Finish this side out.
And now I”m looking for the white pieces to come in there.
One of you smarty pants at home is thinking, but Rob the white is always the same fabric
touching.
I know, I know.
That technically doesn’t count there.
Ok and they are one, two, three, four across.
So that’s how I’m going to finish that out like this.
And then I’ll have my last like this, four pieces down here.
Coming together just like that.
So that’s the layout on your stripes blocks.
So I hope you have your notes handy.
You’re probably writing right on that free printable from below.
Remember it’s one diamond for the center.
Four stars and four stripes per quadrant.
The stripe blocks will be able to rotate as you need so that they’re radiating out from
the center of the quadrant.
Follow me over here again.
If you see it happening.
Here’s that center diamond.
There’s those stars.
And that’s that stripe pulling out but look at the center of the quilt.
Watch what happens, all of these lines start to come together.
That’s those same fun stripe blocks pulling together to really bring your eye into the
focus of the center.
And I really, really like that as well.
Now this quilt I had machine quilted with a longarm quilt because I wanted a symmetrical
design that went across.
And I wanted the impact of the black and the white fabrics to really do all of the work
in the quilt.
But I wanted a little more texture than just simple stitch in the ditch.
Stitch in the ditch will be great for you if that’s what you love and that’s what
you’re comfortable with.
If not, I had mine done at MSQC with the longarm service they offer.
It’s a cool circular pattern.
And the reason I like a circular pattern is the lines are all very sharp in the patchwork.
I like to play with a softer quilting texture when I’m doing sharp line but I still giving
you hopefully a lot of confidence.
I bet that thing is just doing this in the camera, right?
So now that you know how to make these three individual, the star, the stripe and the diamond
blocks the real news is you can do just about any kind of quilt layout with these.
Yes they are half square triangles.
Build your blocks and then play with it.
And you’ll come out with even different designs than I came up with on the quilt you
see behind me.
Super fun.
As a matter of fact I would love to do more and more of these.
So let me know how you like these kinds of quilts in the comments below and we’ll see
you right here next time at Man Sewing.
Thanks for being a Man Sewing fan.
It’s great to have you out there encouraging me to create fantastic new content.
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