Early in 2013 our little quilting group in my small town was inspired by Edyta Sitar’s book, “Friendship Triangles” to start a half-square-triangle exchange.
Eventually, 10 participants exchanged 12 half-square triangles (hsts) once a month for six months resulting in a collection of 720 hsts for each of us. We decided that paper piecing was the best way to insure consistently constructed hsts. We used the “Triangulations” software by Brenda Henning to print out the paper piecing foundations.
One person in the group used the cover pattern from Edyta’s book, one person used a pattern from a magazine, and another made up her own zig-zag design. I used EQ7 and toyed with several designs, eventually settling on this idea:
Of course, the real quilt employed many different colors and patterns of hsts. This is a picture during construction. The hsts and some filler red, white and browns were sewn into diagonal rows first.:
Here is the top, complete with a solid brown border:
Some features of the design are hsts pointing toward the left on the right side of the top and hsts pointing toward the right on the left side, five “barn raising” arrangements of hsts across the center, solid red, white and brown zig-zags, and a narrow brown outside border.
A view of the completed top from the side:
After the whole top was sewn, I noticed one hst I thought provided too little contrast in one of the smaller barn-raising squares. The dark side of the pink hst was lighter than some of the adjoining “lights.”
What to do? Excavate it!
Choose a better hst:
Sew in the new selection:
One small problem solved. Now on to planning the quilting designs. I will share my ideas about that subject a little later.
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