Try a Twist on Triangles, it's Truly Easy!!!

I haven't blogged in quite a while. I have been quite busy with three other non-quilting projects. Changing the color of all our cabinets, creating a fairy house and garden for a co-worker's birthday and turning her desk into pixie hollow, and finally sewing cooling neck bandannas for girls going to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Girls Camp. Busy, busy, busy.

Just before I took on those massive projects, two are done and the cabinets are still a work in progress, I did finish a quilt for one of the Sister Missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We have the LDS missionaries living with us, therefore, I plan to make each one a quilt before they leave our home to their next assigned area. Lofty goal, I know, but they'll remember their time with the Thompson's every time they look at their quilt.

Let me show you my inspiration, the finished quilt, and of course the step-by-step instructions so you can make your own fun with the quilt that I call "Triple Pattern Triangles".

My Inspiration

My Finished Quilt " Triple Pattern Triangles"

 

 

 Now for the How To... it's not as hard as it looks!!!!

To begin, I will be honest, it will take some time to cut, press, and sew all the triangles depending on the size of block that you cut in the beginning. The larger the square the faster the project with go.

 

 

Choosing your fabric will be strictly up to you and your creativity. I found these fabrics: 

 

Black and red are the Sister Missionary's  favorite colors so I found both of these fabrics at Walmart. I love Hawaiian prints and I fell in love with the red and black circles, They were perfect. For a different look see the inspiration picture for fabric and layout ideas.

The next step is to decide what size block you want to use. I would not go any smaller than a 5" block but you can go as large as you want... 10", 12", 19" the fabrics the limit!!!

I chose to use a 5" but I think the next time I'd like to do either  an 8" or 10".  If I remember right, I believe I purchased 2 yards of each fabric.

I then cut both fabrics into 5 1/2" strips, as many as I could get out of each fabric.

I then cut the these strips into 5 1/2" squares and kept the fabrics in separate piles. This will come in handy with the next step.

 After cutting the 5 1/2" blocks from both fabrics and placing them into two different piles, I used the Jenny Doan, of Missouri Star Quilt Company, 1/2 square and 1/4 square triangle easy technique. This technique is amazing!!!!

Take one block from each pile and place right sides together. (Pretty sides facing each other). Then sew a 1/4" seam around the entire block. It doesn't matter which side you choose to sew on. Pick a side, any side. And sew, sew, sew!!! It helps when you have a friend to sew with. This is Caesar, my quilting Min Pin.
Don't forget you can chain piece these to make it the job go even faster.


Your blocks should look like this: 

No comes the magic!!! How to get 4 triangles out of this one square with only two cuts and sewing once time. Alachazoo a mysticalboo and Bibiddi Bobbidi BOO!!!







Magic, you now have 4
 perfect 1/4 square triangles

Let's take this slowly. Take a ruler and place it on the diagonal of your block and make a cut with your rotary cutter using your ruler as your guide. 2nd, Turn your block carefully, to keep the 1/2 square triangles together or you reposition yourself, and cut on the opposite diagonal again using your ruler as a guide. Voila!!! You now have 4 perfect 1/4 square triangles.
 

I got into my quilting zone that I didn't realize how many blocks I actually sewed and cut into these triangles. I made this quilt up as I went. Once I'm in the zone I lose track of time, what the animals are getting into...

 

      

and where they sneak off too...

 oh it's nap time for Caesar.

 

and how many triangles I actually needed to make. I think I got a little carried away. Nope, I made enough to go 12 triangle blocks across and 17 triangles down. I know it sounds INSANE!!! But remember I used small a 5 1/2 " block and cut those into four triangles. You'll use less if you make your original blocks larger. I also was making this quilt for a tall young woman and I wanted to make sure she had enough quilt to cover her toes.

 

Look at my pretty pile of triangles!!!!!

 

 

Next step: Take a triangle and set the seam. That simply means, grab the iron, and run it over the stitches before pressing the block open.

 Open your triangle with light fabric on the table. We are going to press open all of our triangles.

 Press every triangle toward the dark fabric. This is going to help us when we sew the blocks and rows together. This is a key step in getting all of our points to match up and allow us to easily nestle each block with the next.

 After you press open your block to the dark side you will end up with little rabbit ears on all four corners. We do not want those therefore, we are going to get rid of them.

 Take a small pair of scissors, you could use your rotary cutter and ruler but it's much easier to do it this way, and snip off the rabbit ears.

It should look like this on all four corners. You will have a nifty pile of these rabbit ears after you snip them off every block that you have pressed.

Now you have a perfect square in which to turn any which way you want to change the way your quilt will look. This is the twist part of the title.  You can get a different look depending on which way you turn your blocks. Go ahead, get creative before you sew your blocks together.

 Can you see something that doesn't quite belong on this quilt? Does it look like I made a mistake in my placement of blocks? Look closely!!! What do you see?

 Now it's time to test out your design skills. Lay out your blocks and see what designs you can make by just twisting and turning each block. Lay it out several times until you reach the look you love.  Remember when I said to look closer. I added a second pattern in the middle of the quilt. Let's get a closer look, shall we?




Just turning 4 corners to the center
 I created a diamond.

 Time to sew the blocks into rows. Take two blocks and place them right sides together and sew a 1/4" seam until you have completed your first row. I have 10 in each row. Sew and Repeat.

 

It's always a joy to have some help in the quilting room. Bremley the Quilting Kitty makes sure my fabric does not fall off the table and that I don't lose my place when I'm sewing blocks together.

   

Once you have all the blocks sewn into rows, now it's time to sew the 2nd row to the 1st row. Don't forget to lay out your rows to make sure your pattern is still the same. Have a quilting partner assist you with this stage of the project. Note: Bremley the Quilting Kitty is always the perfect helper.

Border Time: I chose to use up some of my fabric from a previous project as the border. I cut a  The quilt wasn't quite large enough even after I had sewn on a 2 1/2" black Leaf border.

 I got my creative juices flowing and came up with the idea to take my 5 1/2" blocks and strips that I had left over and created a second border. It turned out beautifully!!!!

Quilt with final border
. It's finally the size I had envisioned!!!

 The final step was to put on the backing and turn the quilt. I was pressed for time so I didn't use a binding. I found a cute heart fleece fabric from Joanne's Fabrics and put the quilt top and fleece right sides together, sewed a 1/4" seam all the way around.(Except for a slot to pull the quilt through). Sewed up the opening for turning the quilt and it was complete!!!



 I hope this jump started your creative juices and you try out a quilt with 1/4 square triangles. They aren't as scary as they look or seem.

 

 

Happy Quilting from Bremley the Quilting Kitty, Caesar the Quilt Tester, and Me, the Quilter!!!

Rag Quilts, Not Used for Cleaning

Rags for cleaning
Rags for baby spit up
"Rags to Riches"
Rags to cut up or rip apart
Rags to throw out

I know you have a rag bucket, my husband and I do. Okay we actually have two rag buckets. One for clean rags and one for the used rags. Rags are great! They are easy to grab when there's a clean up emergency then just toss them in the wash. Done! No fuss, no thought, no worrying about "did I mix those with something red? or "Did bleach get put in with them?" Who cares? They are just rags.

Well, rag quilts are not for cleaning up messes, they are not to be tossed into a bucket, and they certainly DO NOT get thrown out. Rag Quilts are quick and easy but they are not made from actual rags you have crammed in your rag bucket. They are made from random scrap pieces from your stash or you can put some thought into picking what fabrics to use. They are rag quilts because of the frayed raggedy edges you purposely create to give them a cuddly, snuggly, warm look. Let me show you:

These are pics I gathered off the internet of different rag quilts. You won't believe the variety and the beauty of these wonderful easy quilts.




Denim Jean Rag Quilt, made from denim jeans about to be tossed
or donated. Save those jeans and old shirts for quilt fabrics.



Flannel Rag Quilt. These make the best rag quilts.

Fancy Cathedral Window Rag Quilt

Long Strips Rag Quilt

 Click on Beverly's for a step by step tutorial and full instructions on how to create a rag quilt. Click on Missouri Star Quilt Company for another rag quilt tutorial. Try them out, you'll love them!!!

 

 

 



These are some great tutorials that I used to help me create my rag quilts. I completed one but I still have another that is now a UFO. I need to get crackin and get that one done. Never mind, it's always fun to have some projects you've set aside and then start back up.

 

 Let me take you step-by-step on how I made my quilt. Picture first of the completed quilt:

 

 

This is an almost finished quilt. I just forgot to get a picture of the clipped seams before I gave it to the little girl receiving this quilt.

 

Let's begin the quilt instruction:

 

I chose four different flannels that I had in my baby quilt fabric stash. I then purchased a light green flannel for the back of each block. With the rag quilts you cut your backing fabric into the same size blocks as your quilt top blocks.

 

I cut 10" squares from each fabric. If I remember right, I followed the tutorial from Beverly's website to create this one. One difference, I sewed "X"s instead of doing 1/4 seam around all four sides. I got that idea from Jenny Doan's tutorial because then I didn't have to do any quilting of the layers.

 

I cut a backing fabric 10" square and a yellow fabric 10" square and placed them wrong sides together and sewed the "X".

 

 

I got a little fancy and did some half square triangles for variety. Once I sewed the X in the middle of each block then I sewed the blocks together, row by row.

 

 



 

 

Sewing the rows together is a little bit different than what we quilters are use to. You know you did this right if your seams are showing on the front of the quilt and not on the back. Take two squares and bring them wrong sides together. (That's one non quilting technique) Next, you sew a 1" seam allowance not the usual 1/4" we always use. (Two non quilting techniques) Now repeat this process to complete a row.

 

 

 Almost finished!!! Now take your 1st and 2nd rows and put them wrong sides together (again against quilting norms), and sew the rows with 1" seam allowance. This large of seam allows you to complete the last and final step for a rag quilt. Now sew all the rows together.

Your quilt should look like this after all rows are sewn together. One more step before the fun part begins. Now take your entire quilt and you are going to sew a 1" seam allowance on all four sides of the quilt. The quilting and sewing is complete.

The last and finaly step. Making the raggedy part of the quilt. Take a good pair of scissors and every seam you have you are going make fringes. Start at one corner and cut up to but not through the stitching. Move over a little bit and cut again. Keep going around the entire quilt. Then do the same with the seams between each block. Every seam needs to be fringed.

Then you can throw the quilt into the wash and then toss it into the dryer. It's been suggested that you put a tennis ball into the dryer with the quilt and this will help make the fringing fluffier or assist with more fraying.

 

 It's all about the fringe. The more fraying the better!!

Happy Rag Quilting!!!

 

Classic Quilt-Railfence Block Quilt

My first encounter with the Railfence block was in my Quilting 101 class I took 8 years ago. I did a sampler quilt. This is what the Railfence Block looks like: 

 

Check out the photo below and count how many Railfence blocks we used.



Can you spot the railfence block? How many times is it used?


















I found a pattern on line of a Railfence quilt layout and printed it out. I got a pen and outlined where each block was, then I figured out the measurements, block size, and colors. I did  all of that from one printout online. 

My printout from the Internet with all my notes and fabrics I was
going to use for this quilt.

Below are the Step-by-Step instructions how to take this block and create a quilt using just these 3 colors as you see in this quilt.

Step 1: Choose a light, medium, and dark fabric and cut 8- 2 1/2" x 42" strips from each fabric.

Step 2: Arrange 3 strips of each color how you desire. In my sisters quilt, I chose colors that would match her décor in her apartment. So I decided to arrange the strips with Khaki sewn to the green and then the green sewn to the Red.

Step 3: After you have sewn all the sets of 3 fabrics together measure your strip set to see how wide the strips are. If my calculations are correct you should be cutting the strips into 6 1/2" squares and you should have about 48 squares. Now comes the fun part of using the Railfence block.

Step 4: Take two of the blocks you just cut and layout 6 of them in a row. You can start the first one laying vertical then the next block in line turn horizontal. Do this until you lay out your first row. Then the 2nd row do just the opposite. You will have 8 rows of 6 blocks. Using your creativity, audition diverse ways to turn the blocks to create whatever pattern you desire. Here is what pattern I chose:

I chose to have my light color on the outside on the first block and on the top of the second block. And then continued that pattern all the way across. 

Step 5: sew the blocks together in each row.
Step 6: Sew each row together to complete your quilt top.
Step 7: I added two borders, an inner border using the "Khaki" Fabric and the "Blenders Red" for the outside border.
Step 8: Sandwich the backing, batting, and quilt top then quilt however you desire. I chose a simple "Stitch in the Ditch" and scalloped the edges before binding the quilt. For my backing I used "Calico Leaf" green fabric with the Khaki fabric for the binding.

There are many variations you can do with this quilt including how many colors you use in each strip.

Let me show you the baby quilt I made using five fabrics instead of three. My quilt instructor at "Sun Valley Quilt" shop showed me how to make this one. It's one of my most favorites.

I'll give the directions and measurements below.

 

 

You will need 5 fabrics of the same hue, we did green. we started with a dark green and chose four other fabrics each lighter than the previous one. You want your first fabric to be dark and your last fabric to be light. This is also a great way to learn the differences between lights, mediums, and darks, hues, shades and color choices.

 

You will do 7 Railfence blocks across and 8 blocks down.

 

Cut your 5 fabrics into 1 1/2" strips.



Sew 1 strip of each color together. Rinse and Repeat, OK Sew and Repeat.

 

This is what you should get after you've done all your sewing:

 

Now cut from each strip set 5 1/2" squares. Again, Cut and Repeat until you have 56 blocks.

 

 

Arrange these blocks to create whatever pattern you desire just by turning the blocks and matching colors. You should have enough blocks to do 7 blocks in each row with 8 rows. Have fun playing with colors and hues. 

 

These are pretty fast and easy quilts and the results are amazing just by the way you turn the Railfence blocks.

 

Baby quilt for my cousin, Mandy, in Australia for their
first baby.

 

Quilt for my Sister, Bree, to use as décor in her condo.