Simple Shape Quilt Designs

Half Square Triangles (HST’s), Rectangles, Squares – original quilt design by Annika Kornelis

I am not feeling very creative these days. My creativity feeds off the buzz of city life. Since we are supposed to only go outside if it’s necessary, and many or all shops, restaurants, cafes, theaters, museums and offices are closed, there is no buzz. There is hardly any city life. It’s sad.

So while I am not brimming with creative ideas, I do feel the need to play with color, and make nice things I can share. I figured I would design quilts with repeating basic units, in case anyone wants to do fairly random piecing to keep busy, using just their stash, and without a real pattern in mind.

Many of these basic units can be made with Inklingo shapes. You can find all available shapes and sizes here. Note: Squares and rectangles are under ‘polygons’.

I used mostly existing blocks from the EQ Block Libraries. I hope these pictures give you some ideas of what you can do with piles of, for instance, half square triangle units or flying geese units. Linda Franz gives some great Triangle Tips on her website for quick, efficient and perfectly accurate machine piecing triangle units.

The Five Patch Shoo Fly block on a 5 x 5 square grid

The yellow / orange quilt at the top of the post uses Five Patch Shoo Fly blocks, set side by side, surrounded with grey and yellow sashings, and blue corner stones. This design would work with a controlled scrappy palette too.

All rectangles are the same size, both inside the block and in the sashings. The same goes for the small center squares and the corner stones.

You can see the ratios in the line drawing above. So if a block finishes at 5 inches, the grey sashing rectangles are 1 x 2 inches, with a 1 inch yellow square in the middle.

Triangles and Squares – original quilt design by Annika Kornelis

The second quilt alternates two 4 x 4 grid blocks. One is a Variable Star with an extra diamond in the center. The other is a Dutchman’s Puzzle. Both use the same sizes of triangles, in basically Flying Geese units.

Line Drawing of Variable Star on 4 x 4 square grid

Line Drawing of Dutchman’s Puzzle on 4 x 4 square grid

The larger triangles are all Quarter Square Triangles (QST’s). The smaller ones are Half Square Triangles (HST’s). Let’s assume you want to make these blocks using Inklingo shapes.

The long side of the QST’s are half the width of the block. They are named for the length of this side. The largest ‘regular’ size in Inklingo QST’s is 3 inches. (There are many more ‘odd’ sizes of QST, up to 12.18 inch!).

So let’s say you are making 6 inch blocks (finished size), using 3″ QST’s. You would need the 1.5″ HST shapes for the small triangles. The corner squares in the Variable Star block are also 1.5″. So the ratios are: QST and square 1 : HST 2 : block size 4.

The on point square in the center (or diamond) of the Variable Star has an odd size. The sides are the length of the long side of the HST’s. If its short sides are 1.5 inches, the long side is 1.5 x 1.414 = 2.12. (Thank you, Pythagoras, for figuring out the 1.414!)

And that sort of thing is why Linda Franz of Inklingo has provided us with so many ‘odd’ sized shapes! :-). Thank you Linda, for making 2.12 inch square Inklingo Shapes!

Of course you can pick any size you like for your sashings and corner stones. If you want to use Inklingo shapes, you can use the log cabin shape collections. The largest log available is 1 x 10 inches.

Dutchman’s Puzzle and Variable Star blocks without sashing, different coloring  – original quilt design by Annika Kornelis

Above you can see what you can achieve with the same blocks in a different set. Here they are set side by side without sashings. The different coloring (specifically the black triangles) makes it look like Dutchman’s Puzzle variation blocks in an on point setting, with light grey and red sashings.

Very simple Flying Geese quilt design. Would work in vertical direction too. Original quilt design by Annika Kornelis

Again, for flying geese units with Inklingo shapes, you need QST’s for the larger triangles and HST’s for the smaller triangles. For any size QST, you need half the size HST. Linda names all shapes with the finished size, so you would be looking for say 6″ QST and 3″ HST shapes.

I hope you enjoyed this virtual quilt show!

XXX Annika