I have a fun Diamond quilt block tutorial for you today!

I’m actively working to reduce my scrap pile this year, which is how this diamond quilt block came to be.

If you’ve ever sent out a quilt to be long-armed, you’ll likely have a collection of scraps just like this:

Because your backing needs to be 3-5″ larger than your quilt top (in each direction), you end up with a lot of long, skinny scraps. These are perfect for the rectangles needed to create the half rectangle triangles in this diamond block.

Block Requirements

This is what you need to make one block. The blocks are 4.5″ x 8.5″ unfinished (4″ x 8″ once sewn into a quilt).

Each diamond quilt block needs:

• two 3″ x 6″ background fabric rectangles (white)
• two 3″ x 6″ pattern fabric rectangles (Amy Butler)
• four 1.5″ solid fabric squares (Kona Medium Pink)

Firstly, you need to cut the four rectangles diagonally – now pay attention here! You need a top-left-to-bottom-right and a top-right-to-bottom-left cut in EACH fabric. You also need to draw a diagonal line on the back of each of the 1.5″ squares.

Sew the Half Rectangle Triangles (HRTs)

Let’s get sewing! You need to match each patterned half rectangle with a background fabric half rectangle:

Take a set of triangles and place them right sides together along their long edges.

You need to offset the triangles slightly. The triangles have two points – one more acute (skinnier) than the other. This skinny point needs to overhang the less skinny point of the other triangle by a quarter inch.

Same for the triangles with diagonals in the other orientation.

When the blocks are sewn, press two blocks with the same orientation toward one fabric and then the two blocks in the other orientation toward the other fabric. This is important as it will enable the seams within the block to nest:

How to Trim Your Half Rectangle Triangle Blocks to 2.5″ x 4.5″

Buy some Bloc_Loc half rectangle triangle rulers! I’m not going to lie, they aren’t cheap but these babies will save you tons of time. I really love HRTs and make them often, so these have been a good investment for me.

I bought the 8.5″ x 4.5″ HRT rulers* in the 2:1 aspect (the long edge is twice the small edge). They’re great because you can use them to trim any 2:1 HRT that size and smaller.

But if you aren’t ready (or don’t want) to spring for the rulers, no worries. You can trim these half rectangle triangles to 2.5″ x 4.5″ with a regular ruler. To do this, you first need to trim the blocks to 2.5″ wide:

Next, take a quilting ruler and start at one of the corners with a diagonal. Line up one edge of the ruler with the long edge of the HRT. Then slowly slide the ruler down the unit (keeping the ruler/block edges lined up) until you find the spot where the diagonal is exactly a quarter inch from the long edge.

Once that spot is located, the part of the HRT extending past the top of the ruler can be trimmed off. Because the diagonal is now a quarter inch from both edges, when it is sewn together with another unit the diagonal will form a lovely point

Turn the HRT around and repeat the process with the other bisected corner. Before you trim the top off the opposite side, make sure your block is 4.5″ long when you have the diagonal matched up.

Now you’ll have an HRT block that measures 2.5″ x 4.5″. Perfect.

Create the Centre Diamond

Next step is to place the solid square and HRT unit right sides together, lining the square up on the corner of the patterned triangle. The diagonal should be oriented as shown below:

Sew along the pencil line and then trim a quarter inch from the seam line:

Press the seam in the same direction as the HRT seam (again, to facilitate nesting later). And when you’re standing at the ironing board and thinking, “what way did I need to press this again?”, it’s easy – just copy what’s already there!

Sew the Diamond Quilt Blocks

Here’s where it all comes together.

Sew the unit pairs together (I like to sew the long edges first). I press these seams open to reduce bulk.

Then sew the two pairs to form a block. It will measure 4.5″ x 8.5″ unfinished.

Shazam! That’s one good looking block! 🙂

I like having the print as the main fabric with an accenting solid in the middle. But you could reverse it and put the patterned fabric in the centre. Or use two patterned fabrics – but be sure there’s enough contrast between the two so that the piecing is noticeable.

Diamond Quilt Layout

These blocks will make a great scrappy quilt. I think I’m going to use thin white sashing between my blocks (1.5″ strips for 1″ finished sashing). I also think offset rows of these blocks, without sashing, would look really good:

Because these blocks have a 2:1 ratio, two of the blocks together on their shorter edges will equal the long edge. That way you can alternate the block directions to create a fun design:

Phew, that was a long post! Thanks for reading to the end and I hope you’re inspired to attack your scrap pile and make some diamond blocks.

If you’re a fan of half rectangle triangles and want to experiment with other sizes, I have another post on sewing and trimming HRTs over here.

Be sure to let me know if you sew some of your own (either email or tag me on Instagram or Facebook).

Happy sewing and scrap busting.

Cheers,

Kirsty

*affiliate link.

I recently sewed up another version of my Heartfelt Quilt – this time the crib size.

This heart quilt pattern is a lot of fun to plan and choose colours for. In an effort to make this part even easier, I updated the pattern to include colouring in sheets.

These sheets can be printed out and coloured in to your heart’s content, auditioning all your colour ideas.

I knew this quilt was for a little girl and that pink was a feature colour for the nursery. I rifled through my stash and found I had quite a good selection of pinks. After playing with some gold and pink options, I settled on the pink and teal/aqua combo instead.

To my eye it looks quite a modern colour combination. It was also very satisfying making the quilt entirely from stash (something I need to do more often, or so my cupboard tells me).

I was able to use the scraps left over from my half yards to form a scrappy binding for this one.

The backing was a run of yardage by Joel Dewberry that I’ve had for a while. I was very happy to find just the perfect project for it. The pattern is larger scale and very decorative – I’d love to see it with some embroidered embellishments. (Although it’s an older collection there is still some of the gold and turquoise versions of this fabric available on Etsy.*)

It was fun to sew up this heart quilt pattern with such bright, cheery colours. I do hope it’s new owner will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.

If you’d like to make your own Heartfelt quilt, you can find the pattern (now with colouring sheets) in my shop.

You can also read about the other Heartfelt quilt I sewed a few months ago in this blog post here.

*affiliate link

It’s the start of a new year, the perfect time to get your sewing room/supplies in order and finish off any quilt UFOs you have hanging around.

What does UFO stand for in quilting?

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, UFO in the quilting world stands for Unfinished Object. It applies to any project at any stage of progress that has not yet been completed.

UFO tends to refer to a project that has been put on the back burner for a while without progress, as opposed to a project that’s incomplete but is currently being worked on (that’s known as a WIP – work in progress).

We all have quilt UFOs. Some of us have MANY of them 🙂

If your UFOs become overwhelming, motivation-depleting or guilt-inducing then it might be time to actively work toward reducing them.

What to do with your quilt UFOs?

There are several options when it comes to handling your quilt UFOs.

You might like to spend a little bit of time reflecting on the project before you decide what to do with it. Was the quilt for a particular person or an event? Is the quilt still relevant to that person or occasion, or has it been overtaken by the time that’s passed? Is the UFO of a colour palette or style that you no longer appreciate?

There’s no rule that says YOU have to be the person to complete the project. If the quilt no longer speaks to you, you could gift it to a quilty friend who does love it and could complete and keep it. Or you can seek out organisations that need fabric/quilt tops for charity projects. (Just make sure that what you donate is useful for them. If they only take completed quilt tops, get it to that stage before giving it away.)

If you do complete a quilt UFO, you can give it to family, friends, charity or sell it on a handmade craft site such as Etsy.

Does the final outcome of the UFO have to be as first intended? If you were planning to make a twin sized quilt but found the process tedious, could you make a baby quilt instead and be finished with a lot less work? Or do you have an unfinished baby quilt that the baby has now outgrown? Could you extend the UFO with more blocks or borders to create a larger size that can be gifted to the now preschooler? Those two orphaned appliqué blocks don’t have to become a quilt – just make a pair of pot holders and be done with it!

Find some UFO Mojo.

The hardest part of finishing up quilt UFOs is finding the motivation to do so. That’s why the start of the year is a great time to commit to UFO busting… you can steal some of that Happy New Year magic and put it to good use.

Take stock of all your quilty UFOs and look at them honestly. Do you really want to finish this project? What else could you do with it to make sure it doesn’t go to waste? What’s the minimum effort required to get it to a useful state?

Once you’ve come up with a plan for each UFO, you can crack on with doing it. Give away what you need to give away. Prioritise which UFOs you’ll finish and remember – you’re aiming for FINISHED not PERFECT. Momentum is so important here – results will encourage more finishes; you want to take advantage of that. Try to keep the ball rolling!

Try to imagine how good it will feel to have those projects completed. They’ll be out in the world (or your living room) and they’ll be used and enjoyed. Much better than languishing in the back of a cupboard!

Once they’re gone, make sure they don’t come back!

When you have your quilt UFOs under control, be careful not to let yourself fall back into the same position.

Try and have WIPs, not UFOs. Even if you have several projects at the incomplete stage, making time to work on all of them will ensure nothing falls back into UFO status.  I like to have a few things on the go at any one time so that if I hit a bottleneck with one, I have something else to work on in the meantime.

My simple way of making sure my WIPs don’t become UFOs is to keep them in plain view. I find if I put it in a cupboard for any reason at all, it’s a case of “out of sight, out of mind” and it won’t receive any attention. So I keep my projects out, taking up valuable table space, which provides further motivation to get them done!

The first quilt UFO I tackled this year was this sunny yellow project.

I think I started this quilt in 2011. It would’ve been for my daughter (who still loves yellow) and was about 5 years old at the time. (She’ll be a teenager in a month…eeek).

Problems can occur when WIPs become old UFOs, which is why I thoroughly recommend you don’t let UFOs hang around too long.

It’s much quicker to do them early.

Firstly, the reasoning behind this quilt is long gone. I can’t remember a thing about it. The yellow squares are all odd sizes – why did I do that? Did I have a handful of scraps in that size? Or were the sashing strips all cut before I’d done proper calculations? The individual patchwork blocks finish at 6 1/2″…again, I’m not sure why. You can see the weird sizes needed to create this quilt below.

The quilt is now too small for my lanky pre-teen daughter. I wouldn’t mind making it bigger with some white borders, but what white fabric did I use? Was it my preferred Kona Snow or was I using something else back then? And of course, even if it is Kona Snow, over time fabric changes colour and manufacturers can change their colours so they may no longer match.

The biggest reason why I’ll try not to let quilt UFOs get the better of me in the future is this:

In many of the rows I found seam separations, no doubt due to excessive handling over the 8 years this project went from cupboard to cupboard to moving box. I had to repair many seams before I could sew the rows together. So much extra work I could have avoided if I’d finished this project in a timely fashion. Even if I’d just reached the quilt top stage I would’ve saved myself a lot of sewing the same seam twice.

So if you can, finish those quilt UFOs before they degrade and you have to do the same work again.

If you like to set goals for these sorts of things, why not join the 2019 Finish-a-long that’s underway? There are several hosts across the globe and you can link up your potential finishes and read more about it all here.

Happy sewing and all the best with clearing your quilt UFO backlog in 2019!

Kirsty

Can you believe 2018 is almost over? It’s a little disconcerting, right? Sometimes it helps to look back on the year and see that despite the rapid passing of time, plenty of things were made. I spent a bit of time reviewing my quilting projects and blog posts for the year – there were definitely some quilts I’d forgotten about.

I also had some fun delving into the statistics behind my blog to see which posts were favourites with you, my readers, this year. My rating criteria for choosing the top5 posts included the number of visitors a post received and how much engagement (comments and shares) it provoked, weighted with how early in the year it was posted. It’s a nuanced blend that rivals the Colonel’s 11 secret herbs and spices.

Ready to go for a wander back through the archives and see Bonjour Quilts’ top 5 posts for 2018? Here we go!

Top Quilting Post Number 5.

My 5th most popular post this year was for a scrappy fish block. This tutorial shows you how to make the fish block with three simple component blocks. It also shows you how to cut your fabric to make sure directional print fabrics all go the same direction across the block.

Top Quilting Post Number 4.

Top Post Number 4 was this one, which announced a new addition to the Colour Explosion family.

I have an older post which is a tutorial for a crib sized baby quilt called Colour Explosion. I had numerous requests to create a pattern for larger sizes, so I complied and created a pattern that has twin and queen sizes (as well as the original crib size).

Now when baby upgrades to their big boy or big girl bed, they can upgrade their quilt to a twin size as well.

Top Quilting Post Number 3.

Another tutorial post. This time, I lay out all I know about sewing the Quarter Square Triangle block. I love the design opportunities this block provides – the standard QST as well as the the Split QST and Hourglass block. This post shows how to sew the blocks and also has a couple of handy Quarter Square Triangle charts for ready reference.

Top Quilting Post Number 2.

Getting close to the end now… and the runner up is this post, which was all about the business side of Bonjour Quilts.

In this post I detail what it costs me to run Bonjour Quilts and to create patterns. The post also goes into some of the considerations when distributing patterns through a wholesale distributor. Judging from the many comments on the post, both online business owners and those who had no idea about the behind-the-scenes of a quilting blog found the post interesting.

I really enjoyed the discussion this post generated, both in the comments and via private emails that many of you sent me. Thank you for all your input and encouragement.

Top Quilting Post Number 1.

*Drumroll*….the Top post on Bonjour Quilts for 2018 was this one here, called Gleaned Log Cabin Quilt.

The post outlines the problems I had when turning a charm pack and jelly roll into a cohesive quilt top. There’s a second part to the post too, which shows the final design I came up with.

I was surprised this was number 1 ! But it was the clear winner with the number of visitors. I think it was popular because we’ve all struggled with colour and layout at some stage when creating a quilt. Hopefully my hints were helpful for someone out there!

Other posts that almost made it into the top 5 which you might enjoy include my Adori quilt block tutorial:

And this tutorial for a scrappy cross quilt block.

So there you have it, a walk back through the year that was 2018.

It’s interesting to research what got done over the year (always more than I remember) and reflect on the wins, losses and luke warms.

I’ll be linking this post up with Meadow Mist Designs Best of 2018 link up – if you have a blog why not join the party?

This link up is also a great place to find new (and active, so many blogs are dormant these days) blogs to read in in 2019.

Whether you’re sad to see the end of 2018 or can’t wait for it to get out the front door, I wish you all the very best for a happy, sewing-full 2019.

Cheers,

Kirsty x

 

 

I have a new mini quilt pattern out, just in time for the holidays. It’s called Candy Christmas.

The pattern involves some easy appliqué over a pieced background.

I think this Alison Glass fabric is perfect for a Christmas tree – the ornaments are already built in!

Once sewn, there are many ways you could embellish your tree – embroidery, ric rac, beads, sequins, pom-pom trim and ribbon. The only limit is what you can dig up in your “miscellaneous” drawer.

After creating my mini quilt top, I chose matchstick quilting for my background. Well, it’s pretty lazy matchstick work – they’re not very close together. It’s a great choice for mini quilts as it adds a lot of body/structure to the piece.

And finally, the binding for my Candy Christmas mini quilt was the same fabric as my outermost background layer, as I liked the framing effect it made.

My sewing machine has a bunch of fancy stitches which would make for fun appliqué options. I went with an uneven edges satin stitch. It’s very forgiving and adds a kind of snowflake-y feel, in my opinion.

If you’d like to make your own Candy Christmas mini quilt, you can find the pattern listed in my shop here.

If you’d like some ideas on how to use a patchwork tree and how I embellished another version of this mini quilt, come and read my ideas over here.

Happy sewing, and happy holidays!