It’s been almost a month since I wrote about finishing my first quilt. I’d love to say I’ve been too busy quilting since then to write anything, but… that’s not quite true. I have made a start on Quilt #2 though!

I decided to make another basic quilt using half-square triangles (HST) instead of simple squares. I wanted to make it bright and cheerful, so I bought some beautiful peppered cottons and shot cottons. Check out these colours!

I bought 30 cm of each colour, and cut them into 14 squares each.

Such beautiful fabric!

I have 11 different colours and 14 squares each… that’s a lot of squares. After laying them all out, I paired them up in every permutation possible and ended up with a very attractive stack of 77 pairs.

The next step was to make the half-square triangles. I used a chalk wheel to mark the diagonal across each pair of squares, then sewed quarter-inch seams down each side.

Then cut down the middle and voila! Two half-square triangles.

Now, this is where I admit that I used the wrong measurements…. To make half-square triangles, you need to cut squares that are 7/8 inch bigger than the finished size of the HST. I want the finished half-square triangles to measure 4 inches, which means I should’ve cut 4 7/8 inch squares. In the week or so between investigating this online and finally getting my rotary cutter out, however, I managed to get it into my head that my squares should be 5 7/8 inches. Oops.

So now my HSTs are about an inch too big. I’ve decided I’ll cut them down to size (using my Bloc-Loc ruler!), stick to the original measurements I wanted, and do something interesting with the scraps. That’s the plan for this weekend. Watch this space!