triangleisland

Log of the Voyage to Triangle Island

"Hundreds of Triangles Quilt"

After the adventure of the Rectangle Island Mystery Quilt I promised that I would come up with a triangle quilt project. My original idea was to do another mystery quilt, and to do it pretty much right away. However, it seemed that most folks had used up their immediate energy on Rectangle Island, and the end of year holiday season was approaching, so I was asked to put it off. During the hiatus, which I let go on too long, I got sidetracked in bow building projects and then in the preparation for an archery hunt in Texas. Meantime, studying the quilt I had in mind convinced me that it was an unrealistic project... not too technically demanding, but much too large for most folks, since it involved a very large number of blocks each involving a large number of elements.

The result of the above was that I decided to go ahead and do a triangle project, but one that was not a mystery, just a guided effort at a quilt that involved triangles... actually, nothing but triangles. Further, I didn't want it to be just another variation of something with half-square triangle blocks that ended up being sewn as if it were rectangles. The Hundreds of Triangles quilt is a very old pattern, originally, of course, hand pieced as individually cut out pieces. I had done one about ten years ago that had been updated to strip piecing and roller cutting. I liked the quilt, but, as you will see, had forgotten some of the problems I had with it.

I set the project up with the idea of leading a small number of people through it in about a week, then posting the complete instructions and results. Nice idea... However, my vision of twelve people on the ship kept getting stretched by one more, then one more, then small groups clamoring to get aboard, until it became obvious that the idea of a small, limited project published later just wouldn't work.

So, I am trying to bring the messages and developments of the initial, limited effort forward and post them so that everyone who wants to can pick up and join in. There have been a several messages to the "crew" that initially signed on. These will be repeated here, then I'll simply begin posting the next messages and/or instruction steps here, so that this page will gradually become an understandable "Log of the Voyage to Triangle Island".

Captain Dick

Initial Announcement: Nov. 3, 2009

OK... I am actually started, begun, underway, rolling... Well, you get the idea. This will be a different approach than Rectangle Island was. There is very little mystery to this quilt. It's one of those "one piece" projects, where all the fun comes from fabric/color selection and arrangement of the pieces. (Well, actually, there are two pieces. A special piece is required to adjust the edges into alignment.) Once you've planned your color approach, there are really only two steps: cut all the pieces and sew all the pieces. So, this one will be a mystery quilt only in the sense that I'll make reports on my progress and problems as I make mine, but not show you what I'm doing till I'm done.

There is one challenging factor to this quilt. If you make it, you will gain a lot of experience in sewing on the bias and handling cut pieces carefully.

I have thought of a couple of small ways to add some fun to it. That would be to actually have you sign up to go to Triangle Island, i.e.
"buy a ticket" or publicly commit to making this quilt without knowing what you're in for beyond what I've told you, and then set a specified time limit by which you'd have to "redeem" your ticket. This would be followed by a little "Triangle Island Quilt Show", where everyone could show what they did with the concept and instructions. With this group, it's always amazing what different color choices we get and how much variation from the original plan we end up with. I have also come up with my own considerably more complex variation of the concept of this quilt, which I hope to make one of for myself. As a special reward to those who complete the project on time, I might send them a special file with this pattern, which would be called "Diamond Island". Tease, tease....

The first big issue on any quilt I make is fabric/color selection, since I live with this lady whose mother was frightened by a box of Crayolas. I am usually inclined to bright, contrasty colors. I am also concerned that Rainbow Crossing, my huge Irish Chain quilt of ten years ago, made with 30's Repro and which is Ann's favorite, is showing wear from ten years of constant use. So, I start almost every quilt with the idea of a 100 x 100 inch quilt that would work, in size and color, on our queen bed. And, in almost every instance, Ann says, "No, I don't want any other quilt on our bed," and "No, those colors are too bright," and "No, that pattern doesn't do anything for me." So, in almost every instance, I end up making something other than what I planned... smaller and less bright (Ann uses "garish"). This isn't as big a sacrifice as I'm making it sound (not that I would ever exaggerate), as I do like Delft and 30's Repro and smaller quilts are a heck of a lot less work than bigger ones.

The first really scrappy quilt I made, which as best I recall was my third, was a little triangle quilt called "Hundreds of Triangles", made with bright fabrics I acquired by buying a stash at a yard sale. It's a small lap quilt or throw and has always been one of my favorites. When I first came up with the whole "Islands" thing, and Rectangle Island worked out so well, I had a specific quilt in mind for Triangle Island. However, events weren't conducive to that project. Another factor became time... I let it get away from me as I got involved in bow making and then the preparations for my hunting trip. All of a sudden, ooops... we're looking at the holiday season again, with it's many time demands and pressures.Instead.

For these reasons, I made the decision to go with this very simple, triangle quilt and to complete it myself, making the whole instruction set as I went, so that ultimately, I can just post it entire, and you can then make it almost at your convenience. I say "almost" to allow for those who decide to buy a ticket to the island and immediately commit to the project, as noted above.

Okay, so, today was get it in gear day. After the usual negotiation with Ann, I dismissed my original plans as regards color and size. This actually worked out alright, as the colors I had in mind would have required purchase of all new fabric and a review of my finances after my hunting trip showed that I am essentially broke in terms of hobby money. However, I had a huge stash of Delfts and we sorted through them to find that there was plenty for the whole project. So, mine will be another Delft quilt. I'll also make it more of a sofa quilt, which will reduce the size to 60" x 60". It should be interesting, as I've never seen an actual scrappy Delft quilt, they're usually carefully pattern pieced.

There are two options for adjusting the size on this quilt. You can reduce (or enlarge) the pattern piece templates, or you can simply includemore or fewer pieces in the quilt. On my original, I did both; I reduced the size of the templates and also used fewer pieces. As I noted, it's more of a throw or lap quilt. For this project, I'm going to use the full size templates, but will reduce the number of pieces used to get the size I want.

I'm going to sew the project on my Singer 31-20.

I know that some will want to start thinking about fabric, so here is some information for you to start considering. The "official" pattern quilt is designed to end up as a 91" x 100" project. Recommended yardage is 1 yard each of seven colors for the main quilt "field" and 1 yard of a different color for the edges. Obviously, you can enlarge or increase the number of borders to increase size if you wish and this will affect your fabric requirements. Batting would be your choice, but I will note that some puffiness is attractive on this quilt, so my own choice would be a light "fluff" dacron batting rather than one of the cotton battings.

As to colors, you can simply go for total scrappy, i.e. anything goes, or you can edge toward some contrast, such as dark and light, or two color families with several variations of each. If you go that way, you might want to get eight, rather than seven, colors so that you can even up the variations. My original plan was to go with four blues and four greens, looking to ocean or water colors to create something of an under sea effect. Another likely possibility would be browns/red/oranges/yellows which would create an autumn leaves kind of effect. From here, you and your imagination are on your own.

Making all of these decisions, and cutting out the plastic templates on the bandsaw, and typing out these comments constitutes today's work. Tomorrow I'll do the cutting.

Get on board for Triangle Island!

Captain Dick

Nov. 4, 2009, Message 1

Avast, ye scurvy crew! Assemble on the mid-deck fer a message from the Cap'n!

Seriously, it looks like we have a nice crew assembling to give this project a try. I think you'll have a lot of fun. Meet your shipmates:

Dorothy Brinkman
TreadleAnnie
Doll
Tina Kacanowski
Alicia Patterson
Deb Parker
Thequiltedrose
Sally Walter
Vivian Schroeder
Emily
Dawn Stewart
Deb Parker
Trina Schelhammer
Beth Strand

Whew! I had to delay departure. We needed at least need one more actual sign on.... A ship can't sail with a crew of 13! So, thanks and welcome aboard, Beth!

This will be the crew I work with, the hearty sailors I'm counting on to really heave to and get the ship to the island. I will be setting things up so that the "crew" will have the key to the "sailing chart". They will be the group I work with once I weigh anchor (hopefully this afternoon). We have a fast ship and this will a fast voyage.

Once we've established the route to the island and returned, the chart will be published and everyone can then sail there on their own vessels at whatever speed they want. Crew... You will be getting your first sailing orders a little later this morning... as soon as the Captain finishes his Starbucks grog....

Captain Dick

Nov. 4, 2009, Message 2

Captain Dick

The ship is full! I have all the folks on board that I can handle on the side list that I set up. As soon as my own is done, I'll be posting a web page for everyone.

Be thankful... I ran into some real problems with it today and am busy working my way through them.

Nov. 4, 2009, Message 3

I had to get Ann in to help, and I've never seen her so upset she was ready to throw a book across a room before! I guess we worked our way through this ten years ago, but I had forgotten. Instruction steps mis-numbered, inaccurate diagrams, example pictures from different quilts built in different orientations, even an instruction pic that's mirror imaged! When I get my instructions posted, it'll all be cleaned up.

I started out this morning and have already discovered that there are at least two apparent errors in the basic instructions I have. As I mentioned, I made this quilt some ten years or more ago, and I had apparently changed some of the design dimensions. Apparently I discovered the problems then and either didn't make or didn't keep notes. Ah, well.

The basic template, which I copied and cut out yesterday, is supposed to produce pieces that can be cut from 5" wide strips. 5" strips would be easy to work with. However, the template measures 4 7/8" in the critical dimension. 4 7/8" strips would be bothersome to cut. I have called the Admiralty and have a navigation specialist (Ann, the Queen of Measurements) coming in for consultation. She'll tell me whether I'm missing something or not, and whether it's worth trying to recopy and resize the template picture to produce a 5" piece.

Needless to say, this is slowing me down. There's no reason other than convenience to explore this. The template would work and produce the quilt just fine, but I want to get it right and keep this as easy as possible. More later...

Captain Dick

Nov. 4, 2009, Message 4

As I noted in a post sent to the main list, I ran into some real problems with it today and am busy working my way through them. I had to get Ann in to help, and I've never seen her so upset she was ready to throw a book across a room before! I guess we worked our way through this ten years ago, but I had forgotten.

Worst problem was that somehow, the angles on the pictures for the templates just didn't work out. They weren't uniform or accurate. I was planning on making new ones from scratch tomorrow, but we went to JoAnn's and I found a set available for $10 that should be great, though I won't be trying them till tomorrow. I'm bushed from frustration tonight. As soon as I've tried the new template set, I'll post the name for you.

Sorry for the delay.

Captain Dick

Nov. 4, 2009, Message 5

Whew! I'm swamped with folks on the dock wanting aboard. Obviously, my plan to conduct a small cruise for a limited number of people, get the project done quickly and then posted for everyone just isn't going to fly... or float.

We had to return to shore and engage a larger boat... a cruise ship, actually. We are now able to take everyone aboard.

Everyone relax a bit. I am now in the process of building a web page and shifting all of the information and planning there. By sometime tomorrow, I should be able to post and open it so that everyone who wants to can simple grab a life ring and float along.

Note: From this point, beginning tomorrow, I will simply post progress and/or instructions to this page. It will be up to participants to check the page for new entries...

Captain Dick

Nov. 5, 2009

OK... As seems to happen commonly on my projects, things have gotten out of hand. Up until three days ago, the old book I have is the only one I had ever seen that had the pattern I'm using in it, and the quilt I made to that pattern ten years ago was the only example of the pattern I had ever come across. So, I had in mind that I was going to really offer something not many folks were aware of. Yeah, right!

Four people have now sent me variations of the pattern, ranging from the same to a little bit different to quite different, but all obviously the same pattern. I've found that there is even a children's book with the pattern and templates. I'm going to try to obtain that today.

Anyway, I am obviously going to have to drop back and punt... i.e. spend some time playing with these variations to see what is both easiest to do and easiest for me to explain/present in understandable form. This will take several days to a week. I'm sorry to delay the cruise departure, but obviously, I want to make the job as easy as possible for myself and make sure that what I present works for everyone with a minimum of trouble.

For those who have already boarded, please enjoy the pool and buffets on the mezzanine deck. There will be dancing in the ball room in the evenings and for those inclined to just lay back and relax, there will be selected elevator music in the day spa.

Captain Dick

Fabrics

I'm still having some problems trying to pull together and organize this double approach to presentation, but I'm trying to get it together in a logical form. I felt putting a separate section on fabrics in would be beneficial. I'm starting out by repeating the fabric information I provided to the initial group (above)...

Yesterday afternoon, I took my selected Delfts over to my old quilting mentor's. She has about the best color sense of anyone I know.

My color selections from my own stash ended up in three groups, rather than just two. These were:

1. reading primarily ivory to white, but with definite small blue print. I called these my "lights".
2. reading medium blue but with definite white or darker blue prints. I called these my "mediums".
3. reading dark blue but with a definite small white or light blue print. I called these my "darks".

Ann (mentor Ann, not wife Ann) raided her stash and provided half a dozen Delfty (new adjective) blue/white prints that fell in between these groups. I now have a really nice sectrum of blue/whites to work with, ranging from a material that reads almost navy to one that reads ivory.

My next project when I catch up the web work will be to do some quick touch up ironing, (Thank goodness, all of these prints are from washed stash!), then cut the strips I'll need.

Here are photos of my fabrics:

Fabrics from my stash...

Supplemented with some from Ann's stash...

Cutting and Assembling

I've spent the last day and a half playing with triangles, chasing down alternate variations of the pattern that were referred to me, and seeking out commercially available templates. I feel I'm now in a position to actually begin talking about the making of the quilt.

Warning: You are about to go back to college to study triangles. This is long and involved but worth it, unless you're already a triangle expert.

There are two ways to build this quilt, with minor variations to add some decisions to the process. One way is to build it by making diagonal rows, then sewing those together. The other way is to make it by building horizontal rows and then sewing those together. Both will work. With the diagonal approach, you can use more strip piecing technique and possibly save some time, but I'm not really sure about that. Working slower with individual pieces will give you much greater flexibility in setting up interesting color patterns, such as dark and light zig zag bands across the quilt, or any other ideas that appeal to you.

In either "system", you use templates to cut out triangles and join them on angled sides. The challenge in either way lies in how you treat, i.e. even, the ends of the rows. This will become clear in these photos and related discussion. I wrestled with the question of whether to present the assembly techniques or a discussion of the templates first, and, hopefully rightly, this seemed clearer, so you're going to see some assembly, then some template discussion, then, finally, some guidance in making decisions on how to do your own quilt.

Diagnonal Assembly Methods

Above you see a set of triangles cut and sewn using the original pattern layout. Note that these are NOT equilateral triangles. The base is the short side and you have to be very certain of getting the same length sides together. In this picture, the base on the bottom triangle is at the bottom. In the next triangle, the base is at the top, etc. This means you will be sewing on bias sides, so be careful not to stretch. The "closure piece" at what would be the edge of the row (This is a short row that would be right aove the corner.) is a double triangle made up of two half triangles plus appropriate extra seam allowance. It requires the use of the second template.

Here is a similar set of triangles cut and arranged for sewing. However, note that instead of the double, or long triangle piece at the edge, I have used a half version of that piece. You would use another half version piece on the next row, reversed, and it would end up looking just like the picture to the right when the next row was joined.

Horizontal Assembly Method and Comparison

Here I have joined the pieces using the horizontal assembly method. Note the half triangles on the ends.

Here are the two sample pieces compared. It would probably be a good idea to go back to the top and study the sides of my original quilt at this point, for clarity.

Templates

Templates are the key to this quilt. It really isn't hard if you know that. You need two templates... the basic triangle, and either a half triangle or the doubled half triangle. (Note: I know a way to cheat, and I'll explain that later.) I think the quilt looks best with the triangularity (another new word?) emphasized, as happens with the slightly elongated basic triangle as shown above, but that's a choice. In fact, any triangle would work once you understand the system... triangle and half triangle. Many of you will already have equilateral triangle templates. You might not have a half-triangle version of same, with appropriate seam allowance built in, but I'll show you how to make one. If you use an equilateral triangle, that will extend the base and reduce the height and make your pattern look "squattier". There are also commercially available sets of triangles that are designed to work in this type of assembly.

Here are some pictures of templates I've been playing with:

This is the template set I made from the diagram in my book. With my first attempt, the angles weren't quite right. With Ann's help I adjusted and made this set, which works and was used to make the sample diagonal assembly shown above. If someone wants a copy of these, I can trace them, scan the trace and send it. However, I do not plan to use this set or type.

This is the package of "EZ Tri-Recs Tools" (triangle/rectangle in case you missed it) sold by Joanne's. They are $10 and I couldn't make them and mail them out for that. There are actually two templates in the pack.

Here are the EZ Tri-Rec templates out of the pack. They have two very useful features: First, the lines will permit you to readily make any size triangle you want, cutting from strips. Second, notice that the long tips have been trimmed off. You simply can't imagine what a help that is in positioning the triangles for sewing! It made all the difference for me.

Note that the two pieces, properly joined, create two sides of a rectangle...hence "tri-rec". It turns out that if you want to explore new country, there are many quilt blocks that can be built using these pieces.

Here are some triangles and triangle sets I played with. From upper left:

Sara Nephew "Clear View Triangle" - equilateral (60/60/60 degrees)

Omniqrid Isoceles triangle (90/45/45 degrees)

The EZ Tri-Recs - (52/64/64 dgrees)

Small "Easy Angle equilaterial (90/45/45) (Note that it has the cut off tip)

My home made templates: Triangle is the same as the EX Tri-Rec... only not absolutely exact (workable though). I couldn't measure the angles on the double edge piece, but it essentially consists of half of the triangle plus the addition of a seam where the triangle was cut in half. Frankly, thinking about it hurts my brain and it works, so...

There is another triangle/half triangle set out there. Doreen Specmann offered a book (now out of print) with two templates included. It was called ""Travels with Peaky and Spike: Doreen Speckmann's Quilting Adventures". Used copies can be found. I ordered one from Powell Books in Portland yesterday and then turned around and ordered a new copy through Amazon. Amazon has about ten copies new and used listed, with prices ranging from $5 to $50(!). The two top priced ones are totally ridiculous, but the others are reasonable. This gets confusing, because apparently Specmann had the templates in her book, but they were also offered by Marti Mitchell. I was sent a pic of the Mitchell set. I checked her online catalog and they are no longer in it, but it might be worth a contact. They appear to be basically identical in shape/angle to the EZ Tri-Rec. Specmann's book looks cute. Peaky and Spike are cartoon characters based on the two template shapes and they have a series of adventures that basically amount to building about a dozen different quilts using the templates. More when I get my sets.

Making a Half-Triangle to Match an Existing Triangle

I promised above to tell you how to make your own half triangle, so here goes. It takes 12 steps, but is quite simple. It will work with any size or shape of triangle, as long as you keep in mind that what you are doing is making a second piece that will make one side of the triangle into a rectangle, plus a seam allowance.

The triangle I grabbed for this example is the good old 90/45/45. It wouldn't be my choice for making this quilt (too squatty), but it demonstrates that the technique of making the half-triangle template will work even with this shape. Lay the bottom edge (may be the longest or may be shorter, depending on the shape) on the edge of your template material.	Draw one angle edge and the point...
Now flip the triangle and line it up with a straight edge on the bottom and dividing the point...	Draw a line down from the point...
Turn the triangle again and lay the long edge on the angle line you drew, in such a way that it extends beyond the point and lengthen that line...	Like this...
Now use any good template with quarter inch lines and line it up so you can draw a line down from the top, 1/4" past the vertical line you already drew...	Like this...
Cut it out...	Using the same template with the quarter inch lines, add a 1/4" line on the long edge, like this...
Now set your 1/4" measuring line right on the point where the two 1/4" seam allowance lines cross, as shown. Draw a line there...	And cut off the point, giving you a 1/4" seam point on the point. You'll see how nice this is to have later.

How to Cheat (If want to...)

All of the approaches discussed so far are based on the original concept of using a special piece to give a triangle the flexibility of becoming a rectangle, and thus creating a special shaped piece to fill in the edge gaps. Geometry dictates that the edge gaps beteen two rows will take the form of two half-triangles. The old single piece hand sewing method was very adaptable to inset seams and odd shapes, and it wasn't really that much more hassle to use the long, double triangle pieces and assemble in diagonals. Hence, this is still found in old instructions for the pattern. I suspect that approach is bit like the old story of cutting off the end of Grandma's roast. It was done that way at first and so just continued. With modern strip piecing and roller cutting/template techniques, it becomes somewhat easier to think in terms of horizontal rows and pre-cut half-triangle pieces, and the more modern or recent instructions I found use this assembly method, which is quite straight forward.

However, there is another, what I will call the "lazy" or "guy" approach. This is to use only one template, the triangle, and only the triangle pieces. Instead of sewing a half-triangle onto the ends of the rows, you sew on a whole one. It's going to stick out, of course. Ignore that.

I want you to study this picture. The red is the border of my original quilt. The quilt was sewn the old fashioned way, with the long triangle pieces at the ends of the row. Imagine that each of these was two pieces, cut in half and sewn together right along with the rows. You'd have a seam in the middle of the long triangle. That's the more modern way. Now, imagine the rows without the border, but done with whole triangles, as I described above. In other words, all jaggedy at the edge. Before I put the red border on this quilt, there was a quarter inch seam showing. That's what I sewed the border to.

The "cheat method" is to get access to a long table and a long metal ruler. I'm blessed with access to Ann's cutting table and steel rulers in all lengths from 18" to 72"... nice. Put your largest cutting mat on the table, then arrange the quilt carefully on the table, with as much of an edge as you can get on the mat. Lay the metal ruler on the edge of the table, 1/4" outward from the points of the first triangles. In the picture, these would be the 1/2 red one showing on top, the yellow and blue below it, the black and red below that, and the green half below that. What you've done is trim off the excess of the edge triangle pieces, leaving a 1/4" seam to sew your border to. It will end up looking just like the above, except, of course, the long triangles showing there would have a seam in their middle.

If you have an 18" Omni cutting guide/ruler, or similar, you could do the same thing using that and the cutting mat, doing the side in sections, using the 1/4" cutting lines on the ruler. If you don't have either a long cutting guide/ruler or a roller cutter, you could mark the appropriate line in pencil, using whatever ruler you do have, then cut the line with scissors. Anything that gets you a straight 1/4" seam allowance outside the triangle points at the ends of the rows will work.

What this means is that you can create any triangle you want, as long as it has a flat base and two equal sides, and make this quilt.

So, then, why did I drag you through all of the above? There are several reasons. First, I wanted you to know and understand the pattern and how it works. Second, I wanted you to have a broader skill base just in case it comes in handy in the future. Third, there are many other patterns that can be made by cominging these two pieces. Fourth, I wanted to make you aware of the commercially available resources, i.e. templates, that are out there. Finally, I think it's kind of neat to see how quilting technique has advanced over the years.

Note: I can't show this in picture steps until I have at least several sample rows done to take pictures of, and that is several days work ahead.

Captain Dick

There, I think I have caught up as much as I can and given you more than enough to think about for the next several days (or weeks) and hopefully, tomorrow I can get to work actually cutting triangles and sewing rows so that I can take actual sewing technique pictures for you. I plan to show sewing a couple of diagnonal rows, with strip quilting techniques, and a couple of horizontal rows. You can just launch off it you feel confidant enough, but if you don't, you'll want to hold up and wait for me to provide more input.

Remember, if you're impatient, I wanted to have this all done and presented at once after testing on a small crew. Now I'm having to develop and present as I go.

Captain Dick

Math… or Magic

OK, it’s time to go back to school again. As much as I hate the idea, and I do, we have to do some basic math. However, unlike the simple math of rectangles, where something is X by X and if you take a seam allowance off all around it becomes X minus 1/2” by X minus 1/2”, with triangles, an element of magic creeps in.

Our purpose in this painful exercise is to determine several very important things: a. how big will our quilt be, b. how many triangles will it take to make it that big and c. how many strips of fabric must we cut from our material to get that many triangles. For the sake of sanity, I’m going to walk you through this exercise referring to everything based on horizontal rows. Diagonal assembly is just that, assembly. You'll need the same amount of material and number of triangles, so your calculations should be basically the same. Diagonal construction, which is fine and probably faster because you can apply a greater degree of strip quilting, to me, makes some of the sewing angles a little trickier. When I saw a picture of doing it horzontally, my brain leaped on it and said, "I like that!"

The height of the quilt is fairly straight forward. I’m cutting my triangles from 5” strips, so their pure vertical measurement is 5”. A seam allowance top and bottom will result in a height of 4 1/2” for each row of the quilt. I start my size planning based on a finished quilt of approx. 60” X 60” with a 6” border, so my quilt top, the pieced section, needs to be somewhere in the area of 48” square. Divide 48” by the finished row height or 4.5” and you get 10.666666666667, That’s kind of awkward… I know! Let’s round it off to 11. Hmm, you know what, 11’s not the greatest number in the world either. Twelve is a number we’re used to working with; let’s use that. OK, we’ll calculate based on 12 rows in the quilt and the pieced section will be 54”. Adding the 6” border will make it 60” for a vertical dimension.

That was fairly easy… a little science, a little purely subjective fudging and we end up with an acceptable result that we can even understand.

Now we need to look at the width… “Run! Run! The dam is breaking!” Yeah, and some of that not so simple and understandable stuff is going to leak out. You have two choices… get involved with differentially calculated trigonometric geometry or just listen and have faith. Personally, I’d go with faith.

We already know that I’m basing my work on cutting 5” wide strips from my material, and having the raw triangle height be 5”. We also know that when the rows are sewn together, the tops and bottoms, which are horizontally parallel, will lose 1/4” each, leaving us with the 4.5” height used above. So far, so good, but now we have to deal with width.

I’m using the EZ Tri-Rec triangle template, which is actually oversize and marked so that you can easily cut from wider or narrower strips. At its 5” mark, which will be set on the edge of my strips when I cut the triangles, it is 5 1/4” wide, so that is going to be the RAW base size of my triangles. Again, so far, so good. However, when you take a 1/4” seam off of each sloping side of a triangle, you lose more than 1/2” off of what will become the SEWN base size of the triangle. Mankind has developed incredibly intricate mathematical systems that will let you calculate this. After all, we did put a man on the moon! You can take that approach… or…. you can take an already cut triangle, draw a 1/4” seam line on all three sides and measure the length of the seam line on the base. You can then verify your result by measuring again on a partial sample piece that you’ve already sewn together. Your choice.

Using one of these twoapproaches (quess which one), I arrived at a SEWN base width of 4 1/2” for my triangles. Hey! What happened? We took 1/4” off each side and lost a whole inch! The simple explanation is magic.

Trusting in this result on blind faith, I can now calculate to arrive at a width for my quilt. We already know that for initial planning purposes I’m looking for a measurement, less borders, of roughly 48”. How do you know that? I told you so up above. For heaven’s sake, concentrate! Take notes. OK, 48” divided by 4.5 gives us 10 and a whole bunch of sixes, just as it did above. (Math is so boringly consistent.) Anyway, since we’ve already established a precedent of rounding off, we could round down to 10 or up to 11, but you already know that I like the number 12. (Ah! You did take notes!) So, for my width, I will use 12 triangle bases per row.

Well, darn… Sorry, but we’re not done yet. Each row is going to take 12 triangle bases on the bottom, but it’s also going to take 12 triangles upside down, with their bases on the top. So each row will take twice as many triangles as might at first seem right… 24 triangles per row.

Now I’ll throw in a little curve. While I plan quilts on the square, I actually prefer a slightly rectangular quilt… a little longer than it is wide. Keeps my toes warm. So, now that I’ve done my basic calculations and have an idea what I’m working with, I’ll throw in two extra rows to make it 9” longer. That will mean that I will have 14 rows times 24 triangles, or 336 triangles. Well, what did you expect? The quilt is called Hundreds of Triangles.

In truth, that’s probably more triangles than will be needed. If you use the half-triangles on the ends of the rows, you’ll need two of those per row, but you’ll find you actually have one less whole triangle per row because the bottom of the row will have 12 while the top of the row will only have 11. However, I’m leaning toward not using the half-triangles, just sewing whole ones on and then cutting trimming my edges before adding the borders.

Having extra triangles is a good thing. You’ll mess a few up in cutting or sewing and it’s easier and quicker to throw them away than take the time to ripping seams to fix them. I’ll probably cut around 400 just as insurance.We started this exercise looking to find out how many strips of fabric to cut to get the number of triangles we need. Now we can figure that very easily. Most bolts of fabric are somewhere between 40” and 44” wide. You lose selvages, so figure 40”. We know our raw triangle bases are 5 1/4”. Divide 40” by 5.25 and you get 7.6 and whole bunch of numbers, but let’s round down. If we get an extra one out of each strip, that’s a good thing.

Finally, now knowing that we will get at least 7 triangles per strip, we can divide the number of triangles we need by seven and get the number of 5” fabric strips we have to cut. In my case, I’ve said I’m going to want 400 triangles on hand, so 400 divided by 7 equals 57 plus strips. I know I’ll mess up some cuts, so I’ll start with 60 strips. I’ll stack the strips in four thicknesses when I cut, so that’s nowhere near as much cutting as it looks like.

A couple of final notes… Look at the picture of my original quilt. You’ll see that all of the very bottom and very top triangles and all of the edge long triangle pieces are of one material. This gives a very nice “bordering” effect. For my quilt, I plan to use my darkest blue fabric to make all of my bottom, top and edge triangles. I'll need a full 12 triangles of dark blue for the top and bottom rows, plus 2 triangles of dark blue for each of the other rows, or a total of at least 48 dark blue triangles for this edge treatment. I will then border the inside top with a 1” strip of lighter blue, then my main border of 5” of the darkest blue. Should look good.

Captain Dick

That's it. You are done. Stop!

Do not use this link unless you want to have nightmares tonight...

(Engineers and scientists excepted.)

Nov. 10,2009

Well, some health things, and maybe some attitude things, hit me and I backed off from this project a bit. It was somehow overwhelming me. However, I think I gave everyone a good start, and I am now back at the project itself. Maybe that was part of my problem; I was spending so much time and effort on the preparation and instruction I had no sense of getting to the project.

Yesterday I kind of took the day off and worked on a sewing machine project. I gave a lovely little Necchi Esperia a motorotomy and installed it in my industrial treadle base. It turns out to be a really neat treadle setup and I'll probably not be able to resist using it for this project. Doing that was a very nice pick me up. It is, at least for the time being, posted on the TO Bulletin Board. I suppose once I finish this quilt, I'll make it its own page in the Sewing Machine Shop. The adaptation of the industrial treadle to home machine use is far the simplest and neatest I have yet achieved.

Anyway, I'm going to continue to post the steps I take on this triangle quilt, though not with the detail that has been the case us till now.

Just to catch you up, I sent this to the list a couple of days ago:

"Hundreds of Triangles, Thousands of Pyramids, Japanese Triangles, many other names for what amounts to the same pattern. Many ways of cutting and assembling it. Numerous different templates and some methods that don't use templates at all. There seem to be many books with instructions, with examples popping up all over the place, covering both this pattern and working with triangles in general. Most involve faster speed cutting and seaming methods that I don't use much.
I somehow had never run into this pattern except for the example I made so long ago. This is probably because I work hardly at all with triangles except for HST's and so tend to ignore quilts made up of them. I thought the pattern was something relatively unknown, or at least uncommon. All of the problems I've had would never happen for folks who are already used to working with triangles. That's everyone who's worked with quarter square triangles, flying geese, irregular blocks made up of triangles, like Storm at Sea, etc."

All of that's true. I've been sent at least 8 or 9 examples of patterns and/or quilts that, however they got that way, ended up being this pattern. Some, perhaps most, involve speed assembly of one sort or another. I've never been real big on that. Somehow, once I get going, I tend to feel that doing a vintage style quilt on a vintage machine calls for a vintage approach. (Don't try to take my roller cutter, though! I made one king size Triple Irish Chain by scissor cutting all the squares like Grandma did...)

Here's an example of one of the quilts I've been sent. This is from Yvonne, on the list:

"The triangles in my Christmas quilt are 9 inches. I used a Marti Michell ruler and just had a cutting frenzy one day, then sewed and sewed", Yvonne

You can readily see that with 9" triangles, a king size quilt becomes very do-able in this pattern.

"I assembled the triangles horizontally, putting them up on my design wall, until I ran out of room there---I think I need a bigger design wall. My husband was on one of his frequent trips to Alaska (he works for the FAA and is currently doing radar projects in wee Inuit villages in remote areas there) I wanted something quick and productive, so I cut cut cut and sew sew sewed! It was great fun--a big mess--but fun!
The row ends were half triangles that I cut, as halves...with an added 1/4 inch so they'd match up at at the ends. It was very easy. The Marti Michell ruler I used is called the 60 degree triangle ruler and has the option of triangles from 3 inches, up to 9 inches. My choice was 9--bigger is better, you need fewer of them that way!", Yvonne.

Just for clarity, the half-triangle Yvonne is referring to is the white with holly and berries and the one above it, etc. The red at the right is the border. What she apparently did is make her own half-triangle guide as I discussed and showed above. The Marti Mitchell 60 degree triangle is the same as my EZ Tri-Rec triangle, except that it's bigger. Mine only goes to 7". However, at this point, you should be able to make your own half-triangle template based on almost any triangle you have.

Dick

As I have mentioned, I rounded up a lot of fabrics. Overnight I thought about it and decided I actually had too many. I was afraid I would end up with more of a mottled effect than scrappy. Here's what I had, it takes two pictures to show them:

This morning I weeded out those that were, to my eye, too close to each other, leaving myself with 8, plus the dark border...

I may come up shy on some of the colors, but we'll just see what happens. I've actually already cut all the border triangles and the half-triangles. Lots more cutting to do...

Dick

Nov. 14, 2009

I'm wrapping this up, finally. I finished my "instructional" efforts, but did not finish the quilt. I think I undertook this project at a bad time and with a poor attitude, for a variety of reasons. However, I did learn to do the pattern, and do it well... not without struggle. I sent the following message to the list this afternoon:

"My quilt is done... because I said so. Seriously, I have simply burned out on this project and run out of time. Christmas is coming and I have two bows to build for cash. There are goods and there are bads from this effort...

Goods:

It created some interest in triangles.

I actually did learn to do them well. The last few rows I did very well and at a speed of 25 minutes per row with 23 full and 2 half triangles per row. I hope to try this again later in the winter. I think that starting with washed and ironed fabric and using a 7" triangle, I could make a run at a quilt top in a day. I'm really pleased that I did figure it out and more or less master it.

I organized maybe the best sewing setup I've had yet with the industrial treadle and the 191U... Gorgeous set up and works like a champ. That's a long term gain and replaces the setup I had and gave up last summer. I still feel bad about the Necchi and will investigate it further at a later date.

I learned a lot of negatives: Don't compromise your colors or design, you won't like the project or the result. Don't start a large or difficult project in public, do it once first before announcing it (though I did try to keep it small). Practice until you get it, don't start the actual work on the basis of a few test pieces and figure you'll get "good enough" as you go. Don't approach a quilt project you want to do for enjoyment with the idea of using it to demo; stopping to do web work at every step ruins it. If web demo was your purpose, then the web work is fun, but you need to be concentrating on one aspect or the other. Don't start a quilt project if there's even the hint of a time deadline somewhere ahead, it should be a form of relaxation. The need to get going on those bow projects began to feel like an oncoming train.

So, I finished all the rows, took a photo and was satisfied I could now do the pattern and then I quit. I boxed up all the blue fabric, strips and triangles, and the finished rows, and I am donating them to a charity quilting group run by a friend. They'll finish it up and make sure it serves a good cause.

I need to post the photo of what I did and a short photo series of how I ended up handling sewing the triangles together.

As soon as I do that, I'll let you know.... and tell you that if you think it's useful to you, download the whole thing, because I'm seriously thinking of taking it down. I really don't think the write up is worthy of the the Treadle On site. Perhaps at some point in the future, someone will do a better (and, Heaven help us, more concise!) job.

Until then, enjoy the beaches of Triangle Island. I got you there, but then the cruise company went bankrupt. You'll have to arrange small boat transportation on your own to get home...."

Since then, I've processed the remaining photos (after eliminating about 40 that I just didn't think contributed positively) and the end result is maybe better than I thought it would be, so I'll leave it up until I, or someone else, does something better.

Here are the final photos, which show how I was handling the sewing after I got the hang of it:

I started out with colors in bags, but that just wasn't working. There are too many triangles per row. I ended up just dumping all the triangles in a heap and building a row on the table edge, starting at the right, which would be the last triangle sewn (or half triangle, actually) and then overlapping the triangle (one point up, one down) to get the right number. Rememer, there is one more triangle on the base down side than on the point down side.)	Here is a row... a half triangle and 23 full triangles. I laid them out on the table, then stacked them in the order I had laid them out. The rows were sewn beginning at the left. Make sure you orient each triangle correctly... cut off tip up for the ones that have their bases down and down for the ones that have their bases up.
This is a half triangle. My template had both a flat tip and an ear cut off. The cutting off of the ear is not as critical, and the full triangles did not have that, as you will see. However, note how the tip of the under triangle projects past the flat of the one on top. Note also that I have pinned the edge.	I've sewn the half triangle to the first full triangle, and laid the next triangle in position, ready to be flipped over and aligned. I'm going to show you the result you're looking for first, then how I got it.
Here's what you're after... a nice point that is safely 1/4" below the edge..	or above the edge on the next one...
etc... This is what a good row looks like.	I did a whole bunch wrong... workable, but not as good as they could be. I finger pressed the seam such that the two points aligned.. i.e. the blue point would have been under the white point. Here's what I consider right. I have finger pressed the previous seam flat so that the edge is straight and I'm aligning the pointed corner of the new triangle so that it will create a pair of "dog ears" with the previous point. I'll then align the edge and pin it. I used two pins, one at each end of the seam. At the other end of the seam, the white triangle has the cut off flat point and the blue one is sticking out, as shown several photos back, where I sewed the half triangle on.
Starting the seam. Note the dog ear pointing out and the pin. Every other triangle will look like this. The ones between you'll start the seam at the pointed, or not dog ear end.	Here's why I think this is better. Note the strong double seaming across what will be the point. When I sewed them with the points aligned, I did not get as secure and deep a seam at the point when it was opened up.
OK, here is what I ended up with. The rows are sewn here, but not joined together, just laid out edge to edge. I had planned to border this with a 2" (cut) pale blue border and then a 6" border of teh same material as the edge pieces. However, as noted, I simply don't care for it and am not going to spend more time on it. By trying to make a "scrappy" quilt with a specific color family, I ended up with something that looks like it should have had a lot more thought put into arranging the blocks into something beautiful. Lesson, make scrappy quilts truly scrappy, in color as well as random piece placement.

There you have it... what I've learned about true triangles and, just maybe, what I've been able to show you. I'm sorry this wasn't the whimsical fun "cruise" I had hope, and that you had every right to expect. However, it's real life. Sometimes things just don't work out the way you planned.

Captain Dick