I just finished my first quilt that consists of half square triangles instead of squares or rectangles.
I bought a jelly roll of Jenean Morrison‘s California Dreamin’ fabric line at the Nadelwelt Karlsruhe back in May and spent quite some time deciding what to do with it.
I wanted to try pinwheels and started making half square triangles, cutting the fabric on the bias in order to get bigger triangles. The other half of each square is made from Kona Cotton in white.
Once I had finished 220 squares I tried several layouts after deciding that pinwheels looked too busy without sashing (which I didn’t want to do). I came up with a layout consisting of diamonds that it somewhat symmetrical, but not overwhelmingly so – at least I hope so!
(Click the images for a bigger version.)
For the back I chose Kona Cotton in Spearmint, which coordinates nicely with the prints, and added one leftover jelly roll strip framed in Kona Cotton Olive for contrast. The binding is also Kona Cotton Olive.
I meant to have the strip intersect the back according to the golden ratio, but it looks a little off… maybe something went wrong when I basted the quilt.
As you can see on the back, I quilted inside the white squares, echoing the seams between white and color, to create a three-dimensional effect, which works quite well because I used a very thick batting.
This time I tried this technique to attach the binding by machine (instead of sewing it to the back by hand) which worked out okay but would probably have been better if I had practiced on some smaller projects before.
I also added a little tag to the lower left corner which I signed with my name and date. You can sort of see it in the second photo.
The finished quilt measures about 100 x 70 cm and consists of 216 squares or 432 triangles – whew!