A New Slant on Things

In addition to the star quilt that I shared recently, I've made a second flimsy for the Quilts for Survivors initiative. It's based on a pattern that I've seen called Harlequin and was a good excuse to not only make another flimsy, but to learn how to make HRTs (half-square rectangles).

I have a tendency to lean to lighter, more feminine prints but I thought that it was important to have something a little more masculine to include in our shipment as well, so I went with an autumn palette - rich reds, greens, gold and orange with a few creamy neutrals. This gorgeous harvest bread print added some nice texture, a find from several years ago when I was doing some kelpto quilting in Linda's stash.

The cutting was dead easy - 5" x 10" slabs that when sewn and trimmed result in a 4" x 8" rectangle.

Laying out the pieces to sew takes a bit of concentration, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy; I used this tutorial. 

You need to ensure that you are sewing blocks in opposite directions so that you get seams going in both directions to make the diamond shape, so after trying one or two, I divided all of my blocks into pairs and then laid out two at a time to ensure that I had enough of each in the end.

Photo: a.squared.w

Another trick is to ensure that you trim the blocks properly. You need to allow for the fact that the angle for an HSR isn't as acute as for a HST, so your ruler is placed at the 1/8" mark atop the seam. I placed a dot on my ruler at 1/4" to help me see that my seam allowance was going to work. Again, once you get your head around it, easy peasy.

I had very little to trim from the width of a block and about a half an inch from each end to give me my 4 x 8" rectangles.

Sew four together and you are working with an 8" x 16" rectangle - HUGE compared to the size of blocks that I tend to navigate to!

Quilts for Survivors encourage quilters to incorporate orange into their quilts so it was the perfect excuse to use this little 'Stomp' print - duck footprints with the occasional word stomp scattered throughout.

This was a fun quilt to make and you can see from the HRT board that I've pinned there's lots more inspiration. So much potential!....M