Tips for Triangles

The minute I saw this fabric bundle (an early Christmas gift) I knew I wanted to use it to make a triangle quilt.  At first, I thought about using it to make my OnPoint pattern.  You can find that pattern HERE, if you don’t have it already.

But then, I started looking at the fabric before cutting it, and decided an On Point quilt was not at the top of my to-do list, although I did still want to make a triangle quilt with this fabric.

This tutorial uses equilateral triangles, like the On Point Pattern, but all the triangles are the same size, unlike On Point. 

My hope is that this tutorial will offer two things-

1. An equilateral triangle quilt tutorial.  They look great in every fabric combo, are particularly awesome for baby quilts, and are easier than they look.  If you’ve thought about making an equilateral triangle quilt but don’t know where to start, this tutorial is for you!
2. A tutorial as a companion to the On Point Pattern.  The pattern has all the details, and is more than enough on it’s own, but maybe you’ll pick up some tips here to make your own On Point go together even more easily.

This pattern can be made with as few or as many fabrics as you like, in any size, and your triangles can be cut from any size strip.  Lots and lots of variety!

I chose to start with 6” strips, which is smaller than the big triangle in On Point but bigger than the small triangles.  Please note, this tutorial DOES NOT replace the pattern, but works with blocks the same shape.

My quilt uses 165 triangles, and finishes at 48” by 58”,  this tutorial will work if you use larger or smaller triangles, and more than or less than I did.

Once you’ve cut your strips to the desired width, you are going to use the 60* line on the quilting ruler.  Here it is, highlighted in blue, to help you find it. 

Keep in mind during cutting that I am right handed.  If you are a lefty, these next few steps might be exactly reversed.

To make the first cut, your fabric strip should be folded in half and then line up the 60* line on your ruler along the bottom edge of your fabric.  Don’t line up right along the edge, but rather about ½” from the selvage. 

Save these two pieces!  These will be the last pieces sewn to the edge of each row in a later step, so hang on to them.

Flip the whole fabric strip, so you are now working on the left edge.

Again, line up the 60* line along the bottom of the fabric strip so that the ruler passes through the top of fabric strip to make the point of the triangle.  See the blue arrows in this next photo for placement.

Make your cut and you now have your first two (because the fabric is folded in half!) equilateral triangles!

Now, you can move to the other side of your cutting board for the next cut, or you can flip your fabric strip, still with the cut edge on the left, and make your next cut exactly as previously.

Here are all the same steps, with a different fabric pair, to highlight and better show how to move the fabric in between each cut.

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Once you reach the point where your fabric is no longer wide enough to cut more triangles,

open up the fold for one last triangle.

The remaining fabric can go into the scrap box, or be used to make a scrappy binding.

Continue cutting until you have the desired number of triangles.  Remember, my quilt uses 165 triangles (plus 22 of those edge pieces from the first cutting step) but yours may be more or less depending on the size of your quilt and the size of your fabric strip.

Now you are ready to sew your triangles together!

Start with two triangles, and sew them together along any edge.  It really doesn’t matter which edge. 

Iron to one side and DON’T trim the dog ears (that’s the little triangles created along the edge of the seam) because you can use them to help line up future triangle points.

Add a third triangle the same way.  Line up the edge and the triangle points.

Now, if you are like me, you have no interest in adding triangles one at a time.  Chain piecing is where it’s at!  Make lots of pairs of triangles, and then sew those pairs together.

I recommend laying all pairs out next to each other before sewing them together.  At this point, it is really easy to sew the wrong edges together and end up with some crazy shape.  Seeing the pairs next to each other will help with lining up the correct edges before sewing.

Now, wouldn’t it be nice if every time you lined up two edges, all the points at the ends matched perfectly too?  Unfortunately, this is not that kind of pattern.  But, it’s an easy problem to solve, that’s why I told you to not trim those dog ears, they are going to be helpful right now!

Here are two points that do match perfectly.

But at the other end of this same pair, the edges do not appear to match.

Go ahead and fold that seam the other way with your fingers, and the edges match up just like they are supposed to! 

No need to iron the seam again, just push the seam over to check that the points match, and then let it fall back before sewing.

Continue sewing triangles together until you’ve reached the desired width for your quilt, and made as many rows as needed for desired height.  Your numbers will depend on the size of your triangles and the size of your finished quilt.  My quilt is 165 triangles, in 11 rows of 15.  Yours can be any size you want, but you do need an odd number of triangles in your rows.

Now it’s time to add those end pieces!

These end pieces are what you saved from your very first cut.  You need two end pieces for every row.  They are sort of triangle shaped, more or less half of an equilateral triangle.

Place one on the right side of your row, with the flat edge (it’s okay that it still has the selvage) to the right.  Attach this piece to the row, exactly like all the other triangles.  If necessary, fold the seam back to get the points matched up.

Repeat with the other end pieces for both ends of every row.

Line up your rows, match the triangle points, pin in place and sew rows together.  I’m sorry I didn’t get a photo of this step.

Now you’ve got a completed quilt top, with raggedy edges.

Use your ruler and rotary cutter to trim the edges.  Line up the ruler ¼” from the furthest right intersection of the triangles.  It’s circled in blue to make it clear.

Now you are ready for to finish your quilt.  If you are unfamiliar with any of those steps, or looking for new ideas, here are tutorials for basting, quilting and binding.

And, as always, a couple of pins for you to save so you can come to this post again!

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