I just finished sewing my first quilt top with half square triangles (more on that later), and since I had never sewn half square triangles before, I wanted to do a quick project to practice before diving into making a whole twin sized quilt top. I made these using the method where you draw a diagonal line down the middle of a square and then sew 1/4" on either side of it - Jeni has a tutorial here. I originally planned to make a pillow top, but then midway through sewing up the rows I decided I was more excited about seeing these triangles on my table than on my couch, so I sewed up two more rows and made a set of placemats.
The finished triangles are 3" so these measure a nice 12"x18". I did my best to place them randomly, but I realized that with a scrappy patchwork version like this, where you don't have a defined light/dark or pattern/solid, pretty much any layout ends up looking like either zig-zags or flying geese. So I tried not to worry too much about the patterns that emerged and just went with it.
Both to save time, for more durability, and to practice my technique, I did the binding on these placemats all by machine - I have done this before but have to look it up each time, this time I followed AmandaJean's tutorial and was really happy with how it turned out!
I bound and backed these in Kona Medium Grey, and had fun quilting them in two different patterns to create a little variety. I actually really love how the backs look, it makes me want to make a set of really basic solid placemats that just have fun quilting designs on them! Or maybe I'll just use the backs of these sometimes :) I had a lot of fun learning a new technique this way so I am thinking that I may use this same color palette (or something that goes) in the future to make other scrappy placemats with different patchwork techniques that I have been wanting to try out. Wouldn't that make a fun set?
Speaking of this great color combination... when I went to pull fabrics from my stash to make the HST blocks, I just gravitated toward this color combination, and it was only midway through all the cutting and piecing that it occurred to me that it was nearly exactly the color combination that Natalie had picked out for our March do.good stitches blocks. I guess it was lurking in my subconscious, too funny! It worked out well, though, because it meant that I had already gotten out all the fabrics that I needed to make my bee blocks this month. I had a lot of fun with this pattern (following this tutorial) and definitely want to do more with it in the future - maybe make a table runner? It was definitely nice to do some loose, improv-style piecing after lots of precise HST corners!
[ETA] I'm linking up to Megan's Festival of Half Square Triangles over at Canoe Ridge Creations - there are lots of beautiful HST quilts entered, so definitely check it out if you haven't yet for some fun triangular inspiration!
