I finished another baby quilt! I made this Half Square Triangle Baby Quilt for a friends new little boy. I just love making this size of quilt because it is not quite as overwhelming as a larger quilt size. I learned a lot as I came up with this quilt design and I'd love to walk you through my process. Read on if you are interested!
Half Square Triangle Baby Quilt Design Process
I originally set out to try to make a version of the Dip Dyed Quilt I found in Anna Maria Parry's new Blue Print Quilting Book. I liked the idea of using the same fabric as the base of the triangles in each section of the quilt.
I had an old Charm Pack of Doe by Carolyn Friedlander that I wanted to use for this so I started by sorting the fabrics into 4 groups ranging from light to dark.
Then I set out to find 4 solids in blue hues in the same value range. I found that my local quilt shops and fabric stores sure have a limited supply of blue solids. I ended up going with 3 blues and a light gray. Sadly the two darker solids are very similar. My choices were limited.
Here is a photo of how I paired the values. I planned to pair the darkest fabric cuts with the lightest solids and so on.
I got busy sewing these fabric pairs together into Half Square Triangles and began laying them out in solid color groupings. I quickly found that this design was not going to work. Can you see where the problem is?
All the interesting color was in the top 2 sections of the quilt and the bottom 2 sections were just blah and not interesting. There is just not enough variation in this fabric line to make this layout interesting. On to Plan B!
For take number 2, instead of keeping the solid colors in four row sections I integrated them together still keeping the solids in rows. I also added some more colorful blocks from my stash to fill in the holes where I needed more squares. This was better but still a little too chaotic for me, even though I usually love chaos.
Another layout I tried....Nope!
Then I started rotating them and turned them into 4 diamonds, still keeping the solids together in each concentric diamond. I alternated the position of the solids in each diamond section so that I could utilize all the blocks I had already made. This was finally it! The perfect mix of crazy and order.
Half Square Triangle Quilt Pattern Details
Finished Quilt Dimensions 48" x 48"
Supplies Used
- 1 Charm Pack
- 4 - Half yard cuts of solid fabric.
- Miscellaneous coordinating fabric from my stash about 1/2 yard in total
- Hobbs 80/20 Batting
- Twin flat sheet cut in half for the backing
- about 3/8 yard for binding
Fabric Cuts
To make this quilt you'll need 144 HST blocks trimmed to 4 1/5 inches.
- 18 squares 5" x 5" from the light gray solid fabric.
- 18 squares 5" x 5" from the light blue solid fabric.
- 18 squares 5" x 5" from the medium blue solid fabric.
- 18 squares 5" x 5" from the dark blue solid fabric.
- 42 Charm squares
- 30 additional squares 5" x 5" from coordinating fabric.
How to Make the Half Square Triangle Blocks
To make the Half Square Triangles blocks..
- Stack a solid square and a print square with right sides together.
- Draw a diagonal line from corner to corner.
- Stitch along each side of the line a scant 1/4 inch away from the drawn line.
- Cut the along the drawn line to create 2 units.
- Press the seam toward one side (this is your preference but I usually press the seam allowance toward the dark side.)
- Using a ruler, place the 45 degree angle line over the seam line and trim the block to exactly 4 1/2" square.
Now you have a completed Half Square Triangle block! Keep pairing squares together until you have 144 finished HST blocks.
Piecing the Quilt
Choose your layout and sew the quilt together. I stitched the squares together in each quadrant by using the Whole Quilt Chain Piecing webbing technique, then sewed the 4 quadrants together.
Quilting the Half Square Triangle Baby Quilt
After I made the quilt sandwich I used a Hera Marker to mark two diagonal lines in the center.
I used those lines as a reference to sew the quilting lines about 1" apart. It was pretty easy to do using the Seam Guide that came with my Walking Foot.
I like to use a bigger stitch length when I sew the quilting lines and the binding. I usually bump the stitch length to about 4.5 mm. I just like the way it looks better than a smaller length.
Binding the Quilt
I cut my binding strips to 2 3/4" width, joined them and pressed them in half. A wider cut makes the binding a little easier for me to fold over. I used an easy no stress method for joining the final binding pieces together. I plan on adding a tutorial for it, but here is a picture of what it looks like finished. I'll update this post when the binding tutorial is ready.
It is so fun to have this quilt finished I can't wait to gift it to the new mom!
Do you have a favorite Half Square Triangle Quilt layout? The design possibilities are endless! They are so much fun to play around with. Let me know what you think!
Happy Sewing!
