January 13, 2015

Custom Twin Size HST Quilt {Progress #1}

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My customer's 24 darling fabrics are now 257 half-square triangles.  Bigger blocks make quilt assembly faster, but in order to achieve the look my customer wants, I am using standard HSTs at 5" square.  
I used this method to make 8 HSTs at a time, a trick I've not used before.  Do I think it's faster?  It's hard to know for sure.  It requires a fair amount of pinning before sewing.  I've learned that accurate HSTs require a lot of care in every step. What I really like about this method is after all the pinning and sewing, voila, there are 8 HSTs cut very quickly, and that is super satisfying.  I do recommend pressing the sewn sections before cutting to ensure accurate cuts.  And if each previous step before that was done carefully, there is no final trimming to do other than the dog ears.  I'm not real interested in squaring up 257 half-square triangles!!  Next step is layout on the design wall!

I learned a tip about sewing seams where one side is folded back, such as in an HST, from Bonnie Hunter in the recent Quiltville Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt-Along.  Rather than sewing directly on the drawn diagonal line, sewing one thread to the right of it will help the HST come out the right side since this one thread is taken up in the fold.  Or, if sewing on both sides of a drawn diagonal line, sewing just a thread under 1/4" helps the HST turn out the size desired.  The trick is just a thread; if it's two or more threads, the points don't match up on the end of the block.  It's a fine line, ladies and gents.  :}

This quilt is a custom order in my Etsy shop, Busy Hands Quilts.  My customer took her baby daughter's picture with a different fabric background each month for 24 months, hence 24 different fabrics, and now she is having a memory quilt made out of these fabrics!  Isn't that a fabulous idea?



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1 comment :

Terri Ann @ ChildlikeFascination.com said...

I used that same technique for my HST project, since I knew most of my time spent would be squaring up the blocks I thought it was a really great method to pump out HST quickly. Can't wait to see how you lay your quilt out, I'm still undecided on my layout.