hourglass block tutorial

Thanks for all the quilt love yesterday. It made my day.

Here is a little tutorial how to make an hourglass quilt block.

cut 2 squares 6"

I picked 6" because that is the size of my ruler is, so it made for easy cutting. You could use charm packs like Erin did, you will just get a smaller finished block.

cut each square in half diagonally, twice, to make quarter square triangles

take one triangle of each color and place right sides together

I find it easier to sew the triangles if I start at the top right hand side of the triangle and sew down to the point.

chain piece together all 4 sets. at this point, make sure that all your dark or all your light triangles are on the top, not a mix, or your blocks won't come together as needed. (if you don't, you will need to spend some time with your stitch ripper. I know this from experience.)

normally, I am not a proponent of ironing seams open, but in this case I would, otherwise it gets very bulky at the corners and it makes it hard to quilt over those points.

pin, starting at the center and work out to the edges. that will give you a nice crisp point in the middle. don't worry if the ends don't line up perfectly, those parts will be hidden in the side seams.

sew together, press well and trim off the overhanging ends of the triangles

The finished size of the block will be about 5". For Nancy's quilt, I made the layout 12 x 15, so I needed 180 blocks to get a 60" x 75" quilt. This type of quilt would lend itself to a scrappy quilt quite nicely. Yes, I'm already planning. 

Enjoy! If you make a quilt using this tutorial, I'd love to see it.