What to Do With 400 Half Square Triangles and the Latest Delectable Mountains!

I fooishly decided to make a king-sized Delectable Mtns quilt with the "layer cake" batiks I had picking out the darker colors including greens, blues, purples and a few neutrals.  I also added a few from my reject hand dyes that were in the right color family.  The top will measure 96 x 90 without borders when finished.  I am doing it in four sections to ease with basting and machine quilting. This is the first section completed.  Altogether there are 120 blocks!  It didn't really take that long though as this block is deceptively easy, just a lot of cutting!

Here are the first two sections done lined up next to each other.  It is looking a little better to me now.

This is the third section done.

This is the third and fourth sections done.  The sun is making the right side look too bright!

All four sections are done and pinned up but couldn't get the camera back far enough to see the whole thing!  Of course the sun is still shining brightly.  I guess it is okay.  Not sure whether it will end up on one of my beds are not though.

I took the paler and brighter of the "layer cakes" and made 400 half square triangles!!  I intended to use a portion of these to make a quilt from a free pattern I found that looks like blocks are piled on top of one another.  I always test things before I get too far.  Thankfully I did in this case!

This was the first nesting pair and wow, I don't like it at all!  I think the pattern would be much better with fairly wildly printed fabrics so the contrast would not be so drastic  Even with printed fabrics around the half square triangles, it was not enough.  I only made six of each of these so can incorporate them into something else.  Each block is 8 1/2 inches square unfinished.

I actually liked this better but think I am going to skip the bright reds altogether when putting this together.  Right now my thinking is to make some dark blue half square triangles and use the yellow ones as well and make a primary color top which I will definitely donate somewhere!  I don't do primary colors together!  I rarely use red in anything except my black and white quilts.  

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Delectable Mountains -- Using Up My Reject and Scrap Fabric!

I thought I would provide a pictorial set of directions for one of my favorite blocks -- Delectable Mountains.  It looks so complex but is very easy as long as you take it slow at first.

The first step is to cut 2 squares of fabric -- one with a lighter value and one with a darker.  Mark a centerline on the diagonal and stick in a couple of pins to keep it stable.

After you have sewn a 1/4 inch from that centerline on either side, cut on the marked line creating two identical half square triangles.  If your squares were 10 inches, these half square triangles will each  measure 9 1/2 inches square. Open and press the seams to the dark side.

I always check to make sure all is nice and square.  Use the ruler like this for the easiest way to square it up.  My squares were 8 1/2 inches at this point.

This is the orientation of the two blocks before you stack them for the final cutting.  Stack them tightly one on the top of the other making sure they are nice and even.

After you have stacked as above, your first cut will be a vertical cut halfway across.  In my case with an 8 1/2 inch block, the cut was at the 4 1/4 point. 

I then stack them again and make another cut halfway across again.  In my case this was at the 2 1/8 mark.  This is how they look when you just unstack them and lay them out.  You then reorder them.

They are reordered here.  I then stack them up and very carefully sew them together.  Even being careful, I guarantee you will sew some together wrong!  I know.  I keep them as separate blocks (left and right sides separate) until I decide on the set.  There are lots of options.

There is a story about the beginnings of this quilt!!  I had three packs of Hoffman batiks that I have held onto and admired for a few years -- a gift from my sister.  Each had 40 10 in squares so I decided I would make two quilts from these that I would keep -- one would be Delectable Mountains.  I carefully got out my hand dyed blue fabric -- a couple of yards and cut what I thought was 10 inch squares.  Being very efficient, I had 8 layers.  Unfortunately, I cut them 9 inches by 10 inches instead of 10 x 10!!  I took some of the darker Hoffman batiks just to get my feet wet in making these blocks and this was my first iteration after I cut down those blue blocks to 9 in x 9 in and trimmed down the 10 in Hoffman blocks.  I had decided I didn't want to waste any of the nicer Hoffman blocks by cutting the down and wasting fabric so I grabbed some scraps I had.  This was how it looked at day 1.  Pretty boring and not something I was going to keep and also a little dull for baby quilts.

I didn't want to use any more of my good dyed blue fabric so scrunged up some miscellaneous pieces I had that had been cut into.  I also went through my "drop cloths" from my ice dyeing (those pieces I put underneath the fabric to be dyed so that they don't get marks on them from my grate) as well as a couple of pieces that were remnants from other projects.  This was how it looked at day 2!

I ended up making 60 blocks!! So it is 6 blocks x 10 blocks (or about 38 inches wide by 80 inches tall)! The blocks end up being narrower than they are tall because of all the seams.

In this picture, the top is finished but unironed.  I haven't yet decided whether I will add any borders.  I also haven't come to grips with how I will quilt it. Putting it together is pretty mindless with the only matching to be done where the edges meet.  I don't worry about the rectangles lining up perfectly as it isn't noticeable if they are off.  I try to keep the points intact as well!

This quilt will be donated to our Sweet Charity group at quilt club.

 

More Baby Quilts!

I won several bits of fabric during a quilt guild raffle in December.  One was a packet of 10 inch squares, most of which I wasn't crazy about.  I have been on a kick to try new patterns for the baby quilts (like the knot quilt from a few days ago).  Delectable Mountains is one I hadn't made before.  I have two lovely batik layer cakes saved in my stash but wanted to try out the block before cutting into them.  It turns out the block is super super easy which was a surprise.  The only trick is that you have to cut a left and a right side version.  Also the blocks are higher than they are wide when completed. This was the first iteration I tried  as I  had two each of the 10  inch blocks.

I like playing with new blocks to see how I can "scrappify" them sensibly.  This shows some real opportunity!

I decided on this as my first set.  You can see it is  higher than wide so I needed to put an additional 4 inches on either side and 2 inches on top and bottom to make it the requisite 40 x 40 inches for the neonatal quilts.

I miraculously found some fabric in my hand dyes to match these blocks and so here is the first of the finished tops.  

This was my favorite of the variations and it was made up of only one 10 inch square of each color and I managed to use all the light ones as well.  Had to add one piece from my stash which sorta matches.  I do like this one best.

This was the third variation and is  okay.  I have managed to find some borders for both of these which pretty well match.  I have two pieces of 1 meter long fabrics which actually match these tops (they were also part of my winnings) and so they will back two of the tops.  Hope whoever receives these likes the colors -- they are not my favorites!

Going through my bags of stuff, I found two more bags of finished blocks so this was the first to be put together.  I had thought this would be a good stack and whack fabric but it didn't have nearly as much variety as I thought it would.

A not very exciting layout for these blocks.  They all looked too much alike for my taste but it made a nice sized quilt (40 x 60) which will definitely be donated!!



 

Here are the two baby quilt tops finished.

This is the third and final quilt made from the bunch of posie blocks.  I really think the fabric was a really good choice for these.  I think there was about 120 blocks to begin with!