Making Triangle Units

     There is something very freeing about easy piecing.  Just let the machine hum along and your mind wander along too.  Before I  knew it I had put together about 2 dozen cobblestone blocks. Now, I have no plan right now for the cobblestone blocks, but I will continue to accumulate them and develop  a future project for them. 

    The thing that was exciting was the flash of memory that  I had.  A while back, I mentioned the Olympic banners  that look like quilts.  I want to do a banner or maybe a series of seasonal banners with that same look.  I had  thought about several methods.....diamonds and strips, squares on point,  and  equilateral triangles, even just fusing and top stitching pieces down.  But it did not come together in my head until I remembered part of  a tutorial I had run across a few months ago on the 60 degree triangle.  At the time I first read it, I thought  "Too confusing, and  all those triangles!"  

     I will digress here to explain my aversion to triangles....or small triangles at least.   A  few  years ago, I participated in a mystery quilt at guild.  Things were going well, until the "red herring" clue came up in the 3rd or 4th month.  The instructions were  to sew about a million little triangle cut offs into 1 1/2 inch half square triangles, and then turn them into 2"  pinwheels!   Well, I did some of them---about a dozen pinwheels---and decided that was enough.  I figured I would just substitute a plain square or larger HST in the mystery quilt.  Fast forward to the end------the pinwheels were NOT used in the quilt at all.  Yep, I was furious about it.  I  knew that was the last mystery I would do and the last time I would deal with a quilt with so many small / tiny / miniature pieces, especially if they are triangles.   


    So I went looking for the tutorial to give it a second chance.   Kim Brackett at Magnolia Bay Quilts   has  added to her tutorial on the 60 Degree Triangle.   It is now in 3 parts  for making large units of 60 degree triangles.   I did spend a while copying and pasting  to a document to print  for reference.  

  These are a couple of the units  I  put together without having to cut lots of triangles.  I am working with strips and a few cut angles to begin with, and adding and cutting until I get a large enough size.  Sometimes you lose a point  or need to add a small corner piece, but I am liking it so far.    Her technique results in a very scrappy look.....and I think it will work for what I want to do.    Guess I will be making triangle units this weekend.....
 Happy stitching.