HST's For A Queen

My last post was about hand dyeing fabric.  Hand Dyed Heaven.  I had a beautiful stack of fabric dyed, ironed and ready to cut.  These fabrics were specially dyed and reserved for a custom queen quilt full of half square triangles.  And now we begin...

combination of hand dyed and shot cottons

Where to start.  Of course, cutting squares!  I pulled out my Kaffe Fasset Shot Cotton stash (because I love these mixed with the hand dyed fabric), and began cutting 8" squares.  The stacks were growing and by the end of it I had about 275 cut and stacked.

Once the cutting ended...finally...I needed to pair up the squares.  I love seeing the combinations as I put together the pairs.  I marked each set with a diagonal line and carefully pinned them together for the marathon of strip piecing.  First 1/4" on one side, and then the other.  Kind of mindless sewing, but waiting for the payoff!

You know the next step.  More cutting!  I whipped out the ruler and rotary cutter and sliced and diced each pair in half.  I had my 'Ginsu Knife' vibe going full force!  That resulted in a whole 'lotta' triangles!

With the steam iron blazing, those cut triangle pairs became square (almost) again!  Lots of ironing, lots of steam, lots of stacking!

Aren't they pretty?  I enjoy seeing these blocks come together.  Any block.  Once they get ironed they just look so much better!  

Okay, let's do some more cutting!

I can't sing the praises of these Bloc~Loc rulers!!!  I couldn't tell you how many HST's quilts I have made in the last year (I need to research that)! If it wasn't for these rulers I'm sure the number of finished quilts would have been drastically reduced.  Not to mention they wouldn't be nearly as perfect without Blok~Loc's help!

Usually I end up trimming these to 7", but I wanted them a little bigger because of the size of the quilt.  If I was super careful they would end up being 7 1/2" trimmed.  With the exception of one block that was slightly smaller that the rest, I was able to accomplish that task.

Think about those 138 sets for a second.  This is the carnage left from trimming all of them! Seriously, I feel like I cheated the system for trimming so little and getting away with it!

Half square triangles are basically very easy with lots of design possibilities.  When I make these quilts part of the 'fun' is to see how perfect I can get the points!  Bring on a challenge! So, I will take extra care when putting the blocks together.  

This is where I am as of today.  Two panels each of which is 6 HST's x 10 HST's.  If I were to sew these two panels together right now the quilt would measure 84" x 70", but that can't happen!  I still have to add more. Who would want a queen quilt that didn't fit their bed? Although, the quilts on my bed are not queen size!  I just turned them so there was more length on the sides.  

More work on this today.  Add more length, a little more width, finish the top (hopefully)!  I always get excited at this stage of the game.  You can see the end in sight...that feeling of a fully finished quilt top is exhilarating! 

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