Hey Everyone, welcome back to Technique Tuesday.

[Update: Check out Part 2 for more Half Square Triangle border designs]

I took a look around my studio today and thought what can I do for my Technique Tuesday post. As I was thinking I remembered a bag of half square triangles that were left over from my Quilts On the Double quilt. I am not sure how many I made but there are several. I figured why not showcase some different border designs that can be made with half square triangles.

I spent quite some time arranging and rearranging the HSTs in different configurations and I came up with 10 different border designs. Now I haven’t sewn most of them together as I am not sure what I am going to use them for seeing how the quilts that were made with these fabrics already have borders. Maybe I will make a strip quilt – that’s a good idea for another post on another Tuesday. I am sure I can find some coordinating fabrics to go with these ones or a feature fabric even.

To start the half square triangles need to be made in the size that will suit the quilt – they may be small or large depending on how big the quilt is. These ones are 3″ unfinished and will be 2 ½″ finished when sewn together.

If using the same two fabrics to make the half square triangles I suggest using the grid method to make the HSTs. If using a variety of fabrics and colours then I suggest using the traditional method of making the HSTs.

So here are half of the border designs that I came up with today as I played with the half square triangles. Now of course many of these can be reversed in which colour goes where and for most of the designs I have done that.

Sawtooth Border

A single row of half square triangles that create a sawtooth pattern.

A row of HSTs to create a sawtooth pattern

Double Sawtooth Border

This border design uses two rows of half square triangles. This could be reversed where the gold is on top rather than the rust.

HST border design with two rows of Hsts to create a double sawtooth

Two rows of HSTs to create a double sawtooth border

Parallelogram Border

One colour of triangles which make up the half square triangles are placed together to create a parallelogram design in the centre of the border surrounded by the other coloured triangles of the HSTs.

HST border design with the rust colour making a parallelogram design

The rust coloured fabric makes the parallelogram design

HST border design with the gold fabric as the parallelogram

The gold fabric makes up the parallelogram design

Flying Geese Border

Sewing two half square triangles together will create a flying geese block.

Flying geese with rust in the centre

HST border design of flying geese with gold in the centre

Flying geese border with gold in the centre

Pinwheel Border

The rust appears to be the dominant colour in these pinwheels

Tune in next week to see the other five half square triangle combinations I came up with as border designs.

Which one is your favourite? I haven’t quite decided yet.

Happy Quilting!

Juliet Wood on 24 July 2013 at 09:43

I wrote my e-mail about half square triangles before I ever read this which is causality I suppose – or serendipity. I realise mega accuracy is key here as I like the parallelogram which looks like those hard to cut diamonds but isn’t!
- Jen on 26 July 2013 at 08:23
  
  Yes Juliet accuracy is important and this is a very easy way to make those hard to cut diamond shapes.