Easy Modern Half Square Triangle Quilt

Easy Modern Half Square Triangle Quilt for a beginning quilter to learn basic quilting techniques. The Easy Modern Half Square Triangle Quilt is perfect for the experienced quilter wanting to make something colorful, modern & fast while featuring favorite fabrics. When seeing this quilt, on Riley Blake Designs Blog post by Julia Frazier, I knew it was the perfect quilt to teach a basic week long start to finish beginning quilting course! So here we GO!

There are 6 video tutorials to take you step by step learning how to make this quilt! I want everyone to make the quilt but learn how to quilt it on their domestic machine. So the tutorial takes you through how to cut fabric with a rotary cutter, piece fabric together with a 1/4 inch seam, create the quilt top, square it up, layer your quilt sandwich, quilt your quilt sandwich on your domestic sewing machine, make a binding for the quilt, attach the binding then hand or machine stitch the binding to the FINISHED QUILT! So are you ready to learn how to quilt? Watch the videos and have some fun, because….. you know quilting is just not difficult!

I’m using Riley Blake Fabrics Bee Basics by Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet. The bright colors and small print attract me. There isn’t a large print featured fabric to the collection or accenting stripe so I feel like all the fabrics are weighted equally and lend to a Easy Giant Half Square Quilt. You can see that I laid out the colors of fabric in a gradient with reds, pinks, blues, greens, yellows and gray. Of course you are designing your own quilt and can lay out your fabrics in any way.

Don’t hesitate to duplicate fabrics in the half square triangles or have them all be a unique fabric. That of course is up to you. Dip into your stash of fabrics and find something that you will love. Design away as you are the artist of your quilt. If you are interested in purchasing a fat quarter collection of Bee Basics by Lori Holt then click here. The fat quarter collection of Bee Basics will give you enough fabric to make almost two quilt tops. One for you and one for a friend possibly.

Shopping for fabric? Remember you need a 16 inch square of fabric that can be cut into two triangles. There are 32 triangles in this quilt. If you want each triangle to be an unique fabric then pull 32 different pieces of fabric. If purchasing fabric from a store, get a fat quarter of the fabric if it is available or 1/2 yard of fabric (18 inches) to be able to cut your 16 inch square. Download and print the Easy Modern Half Square Triangle Design Sheet to cut small pieces of fabric for your layout.

When a 16 inch square is cut in half then you will have two triangles of fabric to work with.

To start the quilt I will cut 32 - 16 inch squares because I want each of my triangles to be a unique fabric. This will actually give me enough fabric to make two quilt tops of the Easy Modern Half Square Triangles.

I will then piece the two triangles together using a 1/4 inch seam to from a square.

Lay out all of the pieced triangles in a pattern of 4 sets across in 4 rows. This will make your quilt to be approximately 60 inches square.

I will sew Row 1 of the quilt top together

Sew together each row in the same fashion then we will sew each row to each other while nesting seams to ensure that all of our points match up.

Just so you have the vision, You will learn how to quilt with straight lines about 2 inches apart on your domestic sewing machine then here's the backing fabric that I used and pieced together.

Hopefully this helps you to get the concept of how to cut fabric and how to design your quilt top to begin the process. Tomorrow we will discuss a few more techniques and tips in detail to construct your quilt. At least this gives you a frame work to get your fabrics selected. I will post the live video of how we are constructing this quilt after it has been posted. Along with additional items to help you. Follow us on Facebook where we are hosting the full tutorial and sew along at https://www.facebook.com/stitchesquilting/ The Facebook video tutorials are embedded below.

Don't forget to review 12 Hacks Every Quilter Should Know page.