Quick Baby Quilt Tutorial – HSTs and Rail Fences

Making baby quilts is one of my favorite types of quilt making.  They’re quick, they’re adorable, they will be well loved. A quick baby quilt tutorial is a great place for teaching others how to quilt.

Baby quilts are a good starting place for quilt tutorials, because you can see the quilt, follow the directions and then add more blocks or add a border to make a quilt fit the size you need and make it your own.

This baby quilt is made of two blocks, and this tutorial isn’t really a tutorial in itself, but instead draws on lots of previous tutorials.

Quilting Tutorials

If you’ve been around Darcy Quilts for a while now, you know that all quilting (unless otherwise specified) should be sewn with a ¼” seam allowance.  You know how to test your machine to make sure your seam allowance is accurate.

These blocks are made of three Half Square Triangles in a row or column and then one strip of fabric on either side of the half square triangles (also called HSTs).

You already know how to make HSTs.  I’ve written two tutorials, here is the Blue and Gray HST tutorial, and here is the Navy and Mint HST tutorial.  Take your pick, they’ll each get you to the same finished product.

Because the HSTs in this quilt are sewn together one HST wide by three HSTs tall, you can deduce that you want your strips to be the same dimensions.  It doesn’t matter what size you made your HSTs, now that they are sewn together pull out your ruler and check your dimensions.  It should be 3 times as long as it is wide.  If not, you may want to go back and check your seam allowance.

Wait, wait, wait!  That last sentence isn’t quite true.  Your FINISHED size, once all seams are sewn, will be three times as long as it is wide.  Subtract the ¼” seam allowance from your measurements, and you’ll have the right numbers.

Whatever your numbers are, that’s the size you want to cut your strips.

Sew your half square triangles to a strip on one side, and then to a strip on the other side. Easy, easy, Half Square Triangle and Rail Fence quilt block mashup.

Remember, you can make these blocks any size you want.  A quick baby quilt tutorial should give you the basic steps for making a baby quilt, while leaving room for you to change it up to suit your needs.

The difference between the blocks?

Block A has three HSTs stacked on top of each other.  Block B has three HSTs next to each other in a row.  Both blocks have the white HST on the top left and the colored HST on the bottom right.

You could definitely make this quilt with out keeping track of where the white side of the HST is in relation to the rest of the block.  Or make all HSTs from a variety of colored fabric and leave the white out entirely.

I made all of my blocks while very carefully keeping track of both the placement of the white half of the square, and the direction of the stripes within the white half of the square.

Then, I sewed all of the blocks into rows and the rows into the quilt top, without laying the quilt out on my design floor.  I didn’t notice it until I had basted and started the quilting, but some of my white triangles are on the upper right side of their square, and some are on the lower left.

All of the stripes are horizontal, so at least I got that part right, and I don’t think the error takes away from the quilt too much, so I decided not to go back and fix it.

Lesson learned though, even though the cat will scatter them around, lay all of the blocks out on the design floor before sewing together.  Do it every single time.  (I’m talking to myself now, not chastising you.  Unless you, like me, also need this reminder on a regular basis.)  No short cuts.

One Pattern Leads to Another

Making this quilt got me thinking, what other fabric combination could I stick between two rectangles to make a square quilt block?   Check back soon for a 9-Patch Rail Fence mashup that will be the second installment in the quick baby quilt tutorial series!