Half-Square Triangles with Blacks, Whites, Strawberries, Daisies and Baskets!

   Fabrics with berries have always been a favorite of mine, and I couldn't resist the black and white fabrics with the bright red strawberries. I held on to them for a while, not sure what to do with them, but enjoying them immensely just the same.
    One day, I saw a dynamic quilt in a magazine made out of half-square triangles, and thought I'd try it with this fabric. I pulled fabrics from my stash to go with the prints, and committed to a dark/light color scheme with black, white, red, green and yellow. Some browns were allowed in as part of the yellow family. No blues or purples thought! Here's the quilt...or part of it. The portion to the right represents about a quarter of the blocks that I have.
   To start, the fabric was cut into 4 1/2" squares, a diagonal line was drawn on the backs of the lighter squares, and two lines were stitched on each square: each 1/4" from the line that was drawn.

Sometimes Even the Prettiest Fabrics Make a Disappointing Quilt

   Combinations of blues and greens in high quality fabrics are almost irresistible! So I couldn't walk past this Lakehouse fabric without getting a smidgen of several prints. Things were hectic, and I wanted to work with the fabric so much that I took a suggestion from a magazine and made a super large quilt block into a whole quilt. Here's how it came out:

   I suppose it is OK, and it looks great as a table topper with a bowl of hydrangeas, white dishes and some cobalt blue vases, but all in all, I think the fabric would have been given more justice if the pieces were smaller.
   If you do want to try your own, this is just 16 half-square triangles made up of 32 triangles: 4 dark blue, 8 floral, 8 stripe, and 12 white. Lay them out as shown, sew the triangles together, and join them to form the block. Border with complimentary fabric, and either miter the corners or use corner stones to make it simpler.

A Broken Dishes Quilt In Bright Colors

  Sometimes you have 4 or 5 fabrics that you like together, but they don't really have a theme or common motif. This quilt started with about 5 bright fabrics...a lime green marble, a cobalt blue geometric squiggle,  yellow wavy stripes, a hot pink and wine informal plaid, and a turquoise blue with dots. I wanted something very easy and a little random, so I chose a Broken Dishes pattern.

   Each Broken Dish block is 6" finished, an it is composed of 4 half-square triangles. 2 half-square triangles are made from a light and a dark 4" square, with a diagonal line drawn across the light 4" square. A seam is sewn 1/4" on each side of the drawn line, and then a cut is made through the line. When pressed open, you have 2 half-square triangles that can be trimmed to 3 1/2". When you repeat the process, you have 4 identical 3 1/2" half-square triangles that can be sewn into the 6" block.