Making the patchwork triangles is so fun! I love a random quilt where I don’t have to think too much, and this one definitely fits the bill.
Organizing Your Fabrics
When I’m making my triangles, I like to make a few stacks of my scrappy squares in front of me and just pull randomly as I lay out the triangle. I really cannot stress enough that you should not stress about the fabric placement here. Once the quilt is all sewn together, you’re not going to notice that you have similar colors touching or two blues in one row. Seriously, just let the random order of the stacks take over and lay out each patchwork triangle as you go. (This is where having extra squares is helpful! More options!)
Web Piecing
Web piecing is a great way to speed up the process of making the triangles. I’ll walk you through the process below, but you can also watch this video here over on YouTube!
Visualize the Process
Start by laying out your patchwork triangle. Consider it like a grid with letters along the top and numbers along the side. Starting with the A1 square, pick it up and place it on the A2 square, pick up both and stack them on the A3 square, continue until the whole column is stacked. Repeat for the remaining columns.
Sewing Your Triangles
Sew column B to column A. I like to think of it like turning a page in a book, grab B1, flip it over onto A1, and then sew down the “spine.” You’ll have one accent square at the end that doesn’t get attached; we’ll sew it on later when we sew the rows together.
Once you’ve sewn all of B to A, pull those sets back and sew Column C pieces onto the B pieces using the same method. Continue until all the rows are sewn together.
Press each row in alternating directions; this will allow us to nest the seams when we sew the rows together.
Sew the rows together, matching each square seam. It can be helpful to pin these. (Or just wing it, that’s what I do!)
Don’t forget to sew on the last accent square!
Once complete, press the seams to the side so that the accent squares stay flat. *This is important for the next step!
I would recommend making each triangle one at a time, or you can be like me and try to chain piece them all at once. If you want to try that chaos, here’s how I did it.
I laid out my pieces for a triangle and then stacked them like usual to web piece. Instead of then piecing, I just laid out the next triangle and put those stacks on top of my previous stacks. This worked out because each column ends in an accent square, so it’s easy to tell where each triangle stops.
I then web pieced all of column A and B, then went back and did all the column C’s. It worked! It did get a little tangly and weird toward the end, but I did somehow manage to keep everything organized. Did it speed up the process? Probably not, but it definitely felt faster.
This week and next week are all about making the patchwork triangles. Things go pretty fast once they’re done!
I’ll be back in two weeks with some helpful tips for making the HSTs!
