Tall Triangles Quilt Tutorial

I’ve been thinking about making a tall triangles quilt and writing up a tutorial for a while now, and I’ve finally done it!

In fact, I’ve been thinking about this project for so long that the color scheme has changed drastically but I’m really happy with these muddy purples and greens with the bits of pink and white that I ended up with.

I used 5½” strips of fabric to make these triangles. However, all of these directions will work with larger or smaller strips of fabric as well. 5½” strips was the largest usable strip I could get of one of the fabrics I wanted to include.

I think I would like to make this quilt again with even larger strips, maybe 8” or 10”.

Cutting Triangles with a Regular Rotary Ruler

No fancy ruler or special template needed for this quilt. I am going to show you an easy way to make a regular acrylic ruler for rotary cutting work for this project.

To get the angle I wanted for my triangles, so that they are significantly taller than they are wide, I lined the ruler up against the bottom of the fabric strip so that it was angled 3 times as tall as it was wide.

The way I did this was by using the grid on the ruler itself.

This is the same photo as the one above, but do you see the white circles I’ve added to it? Each circle is three inches to the right and one below the circle next to it and so lined up with the bottom of the fabric strip.

To make it more obvious where the line is that passes through the middle of those circles, we’re going to draw a line on the ruler.

But, not ON the ruler. It’s just temporary.

Put a piece of clear scotch tape in place.

Drawing on a Ruler? No Way!

Use another ruler and a Sharpie marker to draw a line connecting the corners 3 over and one down right on the tape.

Now you’ve got a ruler ready to cut triangles! Again, this will work exactly the same if using strips of fabric that are larger than mine.

Working with one or two strips of fabric at a time, folded in half with wrong sides together, trim the selvage off and then place the ruler with the Sharpie line along the bottom edge of the fabric, and an inch or so from the right edge of the fabric on the bottom edge. Reverse for left handed cutting.

Make the cut to create four edge units. These make the right and left ends of the rows when making the quilt. This is why the fabric must be folded in half when starting to cut; you need left and right edge pieces that are mirror images to each other.

Flip your fabric strip over (now you can see the second fabric since I’m cutting mine two at a time) and again line the Sharpie line up with the bottom of the fabrics. Scootch it over to make a crisp point at the top of the fabric strips.

Make the cut for your first four triangles.

Cut as many triangles as you need.

My Tall Triangles quilt is a baby sized quilt. Each of the 11 rows has 27 tall triangles plus a right end triangle and left end triangle. That’s 297 triangles total, and 11 each of the right and left end triangles.

If making a quilt of a different size, I highly recommend planning for your quilt to have an odd number of triangles in each row.

Tall Triangles Quilt Tutorial – Sewing Rows

The tall triangles come together to make the quilt top in rows, and they are easier to put together than you are imagining.

This Tips for Triangles tutorial uses equilateral triangles (equal on all 3 sides) and the Tall Triangles Quilt Tutorial uses isosceles triangles which are only equal on two sides, but those two equal sides are what we are sewing together, so those tips will be helpful here too!

Set aside 11 of the 297 tall triangles and sew the remaining 286 into 143 pairs. It is critical to have one triangle with the tip up like a mountain and the other tip down.

When placing the triangles right sides together, the pointy tip end of both triangles should over hang the other end by ¼”.

Sew triangles together with a ¼” seam allowance. Take advantage of this opportunity to chain piece one pair after another.

Press to the side and DO NOT trim dog ears.

I know, I know.

Most quilters and most quilt patterns would tell you to trim the dog ears.

With this type of triangle, the dog ears are important to continue placing the triangles right sides together with the appropriate ¼” overlap.

Sets of Three

Using 11 pairs and the 11 triangles set aside previously, make 11 sets of three.

Making a quilt with a different number of rows? That’s cool. Make one set of three for each row in your quilt.

Sets of Four

After making the 11 sets of there, 132 pairs remain. Sew those 132 pairs into 66 sets of four.

Making the Rows

Sew the 66 sets of four into 33 sets of 8. (No photo). 3 sets of 8 and a set of three make up each row. (Photo has the wrong number of triangles.)

Just imagine there is another set of 8 in these row photographs. I don’t know how I mis-counted!

Each row also needs a left end and a right end triangle.

If none of your fabrics have a directional print, you can make all 11 rows just like this, and then flip half of them upside down before sewing the rows together into the quilt top.

However, if any of your prints are directional, you’ll want to make half of your rows in a reverse way before finishing each row.

Once all of the 27 tall triangles and end triangles are sewn into rows, sew the rows into the quilt top. Make sure to pin at every single triangle point so that all of the points match up perfectly in the finished tall triangles quilt.

I wanted to bind my quilt in the spruce stripes fabric used in the quilt, but I didn’t have quite enough.

For a minute, I thought about placing an order for more, but that felt like a frivolous expense when I had more than enough of one of the softer greens from the quilt available to use.