How to Never Lose a Triangle Point Again - Triangle Masterclass

hello and welcome to quilt addicts anonymous i'm stephanie subbing we are continuing our triangle master class today and today is all about putting it together so that you don't lose any points i know you've all been there where you've got everything ready to go you think you got it just right and then those triangle points just aren't hitting right where you want them to so we're going to cover how to make sure that happens pretty much every time you know it's not going to be every time we're not machines but it is going to be pretty much every time and you're going to love the results today it's also about learning how to fudge it and that is incredibly important when you are quilting you've got to learn how to make it work when it isn't quite right to start with and trust me every quilter doesn't i do it all the time and my long armor always talks about how she loves how flat my quilts are so you can totally fudge it and still have a great quilt top in the end all right so just a reminder that the pattern that we're using which includes the block that we're going to be putting together today is called raspberry sherbert you can get that over at shop.quiltedxnominus.com and we've got kits while supplies last and if you buy a kit then you can get the pattern for free you get to pick your own background which is super fun but the fat quarter bundle is the one that i'm using today which you can kind of see in all its glory as we assemble everything it really looks really pretty together it's earth wind and fire and the wind is the background fabric it's got a lot of low volume so you've got lots of options to pick from and then you've got the earth as the more uh cool colors and the hot colors are the fire of course and that's from free spirit it's modcloth is what it's actually called you can see it all behind me as well and it's been back there for the whole series so again any factor bundle will do your fabric requirements are on the pattern to go with this and you can use these techniques with any triangle block it doesn't have to be this one but if you want to follow along you want to do all these things and have it come together like ours in the end then go ahead and do that all right so this is a block that i designed when i was first teaching quilting and really the whole quilt to be able to utilize all the different block units that we have put together we've got some half square triangles in the corner some hourglass units in the center some flying geese and then the border is going to use all those double pinwheels and we're going to use both of the mirror image sizes it's going to look really pretty when it's all done but today we're going to focus on just getting our block together so i'm going to start just by putting my flying geese together first because everything else is in a nice four and a half inch unit at the right now it'll be four inch finish once we get all those seam allowances tucked in but these have to come together first so that way we're essentially sewing together a nine patch so for right now i'm going to move all my sashing strips to the side because we don't need those just yet and really everything else so that way we can just sew our flying geese together all right so i've cleared everything away so we're just looking at our flying geese now ideally when you've sewn these your point is going to be a quarter inch away from the edge of your fabric now that doesn't always happen it definitely isn't the case with this one it's probably more like a little bit more i don't know it's definitely not a quarter inch so what i'm going to do is i'm just going to flip these guys right sides together and i'm going to do it so that way the point is on top because that is really important we're going to zoom in so you can see how that works and how i'm going to strategize sewing this together here all right so i'm going to demonstrate on this one because there's some fudging to do in it so what we're going to do is we're going to sew so that we are just one needle width to the right of where this point is so i want when i'm sewing my needle to come just to the right of where that point is because then when we pull that open that point is going to show up exactly where we want it we're not going to cut it off and we're also not going to have a big gap between the point in where the next bit of block is now i picked this one because this was one of the ones that was a little bit too big the one that is underneath now it's not hugely too big it is just maybe a 16th of an inch too large but we're going to be able to fudge that a little bit now i don't want to just center it and sew it because then i'm going to cut off my points what i want to do is i want to ease in the length of this so i'm going to pin this so you can kind of see how it works i typically don't pin when i'm actually doing this in real life i just kind of do it as i'm sewing but i've done this so many times that it just is like second nature to me so if you've never done this technique before i recommend that you pin all right so i matched my points up up there i'm going to go ahead and put a pin in there and then you can see if i were to just sew it how much left is extra there and so what i want to do now is i want to put my pin in here as well to get my corners nice and aligned now the reason why it's really important to have those corners in alignment is you've got to be really right on with this if you're going to have your points show up in the right place and not cut them off when we sew this into rows because if this isn't right on then your point is going to be probably a little too fat when you hit the corner and it's going to be a hard time to get it to work but if we look from the top you can see that there is quite a little bit to line up there so what i'm going to do is when i sew i'm going to stitch maybe to about here and then i'm going to give it some tension and so i'm just going to pull it until it goes nice and flat like that now i'm not really tugging very hard on it i'm just giving it enough tension to make it work and it's going to work because these ones here are all on the bias so that's a pretty flexible seam if you think about it our clothes are often cut on the bias so that it can move and it's fabric and so you can use that to your advantage and then when we press that open it's not really going to be super obvious that we fudged it a little bit so biggest thing to do make sure you're always lining up your points even if they don't quite match perfectly as long as there's less as long as you're off by less than a sixteenth of an inch you're going to be totally fine and you're going to make sure that you stitch one needle width to the right of this now i'm going to i'm going to pull this one because this one i can tell is too skinny so i'm going to be stitching my quarter inch stitch and then when i get to about here i'm going to start aiming for where this is and i'm just going to do a real gradual pull out from my quarter inch stitch to get to so that i'm stitching right next to here then i'm going to gradually get back to my quarter inch seam and by doing a nice little gradual bit gradual slide over about an inch or so on both sides of that point you're going to be able to still have a block that looks very flat that performs the way it's supposed to but you'll be able to have all your points where they're supposed to be as opposed to just stitching across and hoping for the best now this is also why i always stitch with the point on top because if i were to stitch from this side then i can't see where that point is and i can't ensure that i'm going to be stitching in the right place now also i'm going to make sure that i'm sewing with a regular quarter inch stitch we are no longer using scant quarter inch seams for the rest of this quilt we only use that when we're assembling our triangle units but now we have everything to the size it's supposed to be so we're back to our regular quarter inch stitch all right so i'm going to start stitching just a few stitches in go ahead and remove that pin now that i've got all of this on the this is the one that's a little too big on the bottom i'm going to go ahead and give that a tug i also want to make sure that my edge here stays in alignment with the edge of my fabric because it's really easy for it to pop in one way or the other so maybe like throw a second finger on there and we're just going to stitch down and i'm going to slow down i'm aiming for just one needle width to the side of where that point is so i've got a perfect little point when i'm done now i'm continuing just keeping that tension on i'm going to leave that pin in as long as i can and i'm going to put my finger to the side as well so that way i can maintain that corner stitch all the way down all right so i eased that in super simple super fast now we're going to do the rest of them i typically don't pin what i typically do is i just grab them with my hands line up my corners and slide it under and stitch once i get a couple of stitches in i'll line up that back corner again and then i just kind of make sure that my edges are lined up and keep a second finger in the middle and now i'm going to come in just a little bit because i'm not quite at a quarter inch from the peak of that triangle to the edge and now i'm coming back to my regular quarter inch seam and we're just going to keep on doing that as we sew our flying geese units together [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right so this is that first one that i sewed where the bottom was a little bit bigger than the top so we're going to go ahead and we're going to press the seam open you can kind of see right now a little bit of a wobble but once we get it pressed it'll totally fit so i press my seams open almost all the time one of the big reasons i do that is when you press to the side you're going to eat up a little bit of fabric and when you're trying to get multiple different size units to fit together perfectly then you're going to have almost no shot of making that happen especially when you have a block like this with the flying geese because it's just going to eat up a little bit and it's not going to end up being four and a half inches square like we need it to be now because it is a little challenging to press this going against that tip i am going to take my spray mister and i'm just going to hit that seam and this will also help flatten out any of that bit that we eased in as well all right now that is super flat the point is exactly where we want it to be and we've eased that in very well it is still you can tell a little bit wider but we're going to be able to catch that in the seam allowance without anybody knowing just when we get to that point we're also going to be paying attention to make sure that we are stitching just to the side of these points as well no one's ever going to know that we fudged it a little bit this was one of the ones that had a skinny seam so we came in a little bit on it to make sure that we wouldn't lose that point because that's what matters i'd rather have a skinny seam on the inside that nobody's ever going to see then lose a point and have everybody know that i messed something up i'm going to press pressing with this spray mr two and pressing your seams open really makes for super flat points because sometimes when you are doing this it really just looks like your point didn't quite make it but it's because it got pressed under but when you press it open it really just looks a whole lot better now i could go back and mess with this a little bit more but i'm pretty happy with the way that this looks alright i'm going to press my others and then we're ready to start sewing our rows together i'm really pleased with how all of these turned out my points are just exactly where they should be and again that's because we sewed just one needle left to the right or where that point is and that's gonna be something you're gonna hear me say as we put this entire block together it's very critical that you know where your points are and just so one needle what's the right of it even if it's not exactly a quarter inch seam could be a little bit over a little bit under that's the important thing because you can press everything else out at this point we're not talking about a huge amount that's going to be noticeable in the final product of your quilt but you will notice if these points are off every single time but let me tell you you're also going to notice when they're on every single time and that's worth fudging it just a little bit all right at this point we essentially have a nine patch that we have to put together that's super simple it's one of the first quilt blocks that typically you're taught as a quilter but there are a couple things that we have to know in order to get the points where we want them to be and that's where to pin now this one it's not going to matter because we don't have any points coming together we've got points on the outside and then we have a point in the center so nothing really has to pin together perfectly we just need to make sure that we flip it right sides together and sew with this side on top because we want to be able to sew just to the right of that triangle point just like we did with the flying geese all right so we're these we've got a little bit of work to do here because we do have points coming together at the bottom and at the top so i want to make sure that i take my time when i pin those to make sure that they are nice and right on top of each other so that the points not only come together in this seam but also when we join it to the sashing block on the outside now this one i'm going to want to make sure that i sew with this part on top because we can see that we have one of those little joins right here so we want to make sure that we're going to sew just to the side of that now this may seem slightly confusing when you're sewing it together so i recommend that you just get everything flipped so that way it's going to be in the direction that you're sewing when you put it together so for me i like to just pick it up and take it over to my sewing machine and we're going to be able to do that here all right so i'm going to get these pin i'm going to show you how we do that here all right so you can see this really clearly because we've got background on one side and print on the other and then it's flip flop for the other side so what i like to do is just look from above like this and make sure that those seams are right on top of each other and it's really easy to see in a block like this and then what i do is i put a pin in the right side of that seam allowance because when i'm stitching i'm going to be able to just stitch right down here and be just to the side of this and then we'll be good to go now remember when this is in the block it's going to look like this but it's totally okay to just start from the top on this side and then stitch down all right so this block we don't have to pin anything on because there's no triangles to join but we do have one here so i'm going to go ahead and get that aligned up just like we did before and this is going to be super flat because we pressed everything open so you won't have that big bulky seam where you may have gotten everything all together perfectly but then when you pressed it over it just sort of took up a little bit of room and it hid your point inside that seam and that's no fun all right i'm going to get these sewn together and again if they're not exactly the same size like this one isn't exactly the same size i'm just going to ease that in as i go and that's really the thing you know like you might especially in a block like this or we're sewing two together it it might not be absolutely perfect when you're sewing it to one that's been trimmed to four and a half inches but that's okay you just ease in the teeniest little bit as long as you're talking about less than a sixteenth of an inch difference you can absolutely make that work and your quilt will turn out just fine it will still be very flat it's more than that and they're not square then we're talking about a different situation but if it's mostly there then you're totally okay you can fudge it i'm going to start by just lining up this top corner you could always pin that as well if you so choose i tend to pin only when i absolutely have to i'm going to go ahead and start sewing and then once i get just maybe maybe three quarters of an inch in i'm going to make sure that everything is nice and lined up on the edges all the way down and if i have to do any easing in this is where i start it i also like to put my hand right in the center where that seam is and at this point i'm going to start coming in just a smidge because i want to make sure that i'm going to come just to the side of that seam allowance where all those points come together now i'm going to sew down until i am as close to that pin as possible i want to make sure my needle is down in the first half of that seam allowance so it kind of acts like a pin keeps those points nice and together now i can go ahead and remove my pen and sew the rest of the way down all right this is a block that we didn't need to do any pinning on because we don't have any points that match so all we need to do is get our first corners lined up i'm going to start stitching just a little bit now i've got a little bit of easing in to do my bottom block is just a smidge longer so what i'm going to do is i'm going to line up those back points you could pin this as well before you started but i just hold it in place with my finger get my edges lined up and stitch down again i'm making sure to sew so that i am just right to the side of where that point is all right now we've got our last one this one i'm just going to sew a teeny little bit to get my needle in right here and then i can pull that pin all right so that is good to go and i've got to do a little bit of easing on this one as well so we're going to match those bottom corners and stitch away make sure to sew just to the side of where that triangle is at that center seam should be good to go and when you're doing this it's really important to lay everything back out to make sure you've got everything going in the right direction when you are lining these blocks out because you will be able to tell if you if you mess something up all right so i've got my large triangles all pointing to the center here that are from fat quarters and then i've got my large triangles from background pointing to the center of my horizontal row so everything is looking the way it should now i'm not going to press the shadow my wait till everything's good to go but this is looking really really good we've got good joins here good joins here this part it's no joints to worry about good here and good here so i'm really happy with the way that these all are looking so far so now we're just going to do the same thing on the other side we've got the same points to match at the top and the bottom and then just do any easing in as needed [Music] done [Music] it's a good idea to kind of take a look from above and make sure that you are happy with how all the points are coming together you can just kind of give it a tug open and make sure everything looks right it does here so i'm going to go ahead and press these open i'm going to go ahead and give these seams a little spritz and give them an additional little press just to get them as flat as possible so that we have a great finish block that is looking so good i'm so excited about this we can see really clearly where these points are all coming together and then we didn't lose a single point on this triangle here these are maybe just a smidge like this one's just a smidge higher but it's one of those things where once it's quilted you will absolutely not be able to tell that at all so i'm really happy with this i'm going to go ahead and press my others and you remember i believe this is the one that we had to ease in you can't even tell like you cannot tell at all that this was a full 16th of an inch wider than the other ones they just look really good and once it's quilted it's going to look even better [Music] this looks really really good i'm very excited with how this is turning out i also just want to point out so this seam was a little skinny on this side only because our my flying geese wasn't perfectly level on the top but as long as you're going just to the right of where that point is and you are disregarding the seam allowance just a little bit for a teeny little bit of time it's going to look fabulous from the front and that's what people are going to see no one's ever going to see the back of your quilt it's going to be quilted on the inside so as long as it lays flat you're good to go all right so i'm going to show you how i pin to get these points correct and these points correct actually this is not really a point that's going to show anything so really we're worried about these points and this one here so remember earlier we were talking about pinning so that way our tiny little bits here we're going to be uh be able to sew to the seam side of that now we have them in this case on this side we have one and on this way this is what we'll see so we see one two three and four so these are our most important ones so i'm going to go ahead and flip it so that that is a side that is up because that is where i want to make sure that i'm sewing to the seam side of all those tiny little bits i'm going to zoom in a little bit so you can see how i pinned everything together and then we're going to be able to sew this block together all right so i'm going to start with my corners we have two that match up they're on the same side this time so we're just going to line those up and i can see from the top that i've got it in line where i've got my prints on one side and my backgrounds on the other i'm just going to put that pin in the right side of the seam allowance now here i don't have anything to match so no big deal nothing to worry about just make sure you're sewing to the seam side of that triangle and here we have a triangle here but we don't have one here so all we have to do is look from the top and make sure again that we've got our seams right on top of each other and then i'm going to pin in the right side of that seam allowance again now this one is a little thicker because this is the one where we did press it to the side so you do have to think about that now the reason why i pin on the right side of that seam allowance is because when we're stitching we're going to stitch this way so we'll be able to get it started and so a couple of stitches put our needle down and then we can remove this pin then we can stitch make sure we're to the seam side the right side of where that point is and then we can stitch down to here and stop with our needle down in the portion of the seam allowance right here that that side and then we can pull this and then we can keep on going repeating that process as we work our way down now this one we're just going to have to hope that we got that seam in the right spot hopefully it worked out 9 out of 10 times it does the rest of these i'm going to pin the same way i did my first half and then we're ready to sew this together [Applause] [Music] i'm just going really slow as i do this i'm not whipping through i just really want to make sure that i am sewing as close to those pins as i can so that way we can keep everything together and then also that i'm making sure to sew just to the right of where all those little seams come together so that way we don't cut off any of our points all right because this is less about how to make the block and how to put the block together without losing all your points i really want to show you close up what this looks like so you can see because i used very dark purple thread that i sew just to the side of where those points are here and here and then also here and here now this one there's one on the other side we're just going to have to hope and pray that it ended up the right spot it did we're good there you could always if you were unhappy with it and pick a little bit from side to side and then restitch starting a little before and ending a little after but this turned out really well so i'm going to go ahead and press this open i'm going to stress again how important pressing your seams open are because at this point you've got points going in a couple of different directions on both the middle row and the bottom row so if we were to press one going underneath one you're going to end up losing some points just because they got pressed under a seam so that's not going to work we don't want that but when you press them open it gets super flat you maintain the size you're supposed to have and then also you really don't lose points on either side this looks really good both here and then also there and then my outside points are really coming together perfectly as well which means when i put my sashing on they're just going to come together fabulously and look great on the edge all right i'm going to give this a press with my spray mister and just to get it super super flat then we're going to repeat everything on the other side now remember we want to make sure to keep these up so that way we can see that when we are sewing so even though we it makes sense to just flip this down we're going to flip it the other way and then i like to flip it around so that i have the point i'm pinning away from me [Music] all right now we've got a super flat block with all the points where they should be including on the edges so that way they can be right where they should be when they match up with our sashing as well and it just looks fabulous i really love how this is all coming together everything looks great everything is where it should be and that's what you're aiming for now not everyone is absolutely perfect this one isn't quite exactly where it should be in terms of coming out to the edge but you know what it's it's pretty stinging close i'm totally fine with that no one is ever going to have a completely perfect quilt but this is really good i'm really pleased with these results all right so now we're going to add some sashing and then we're good to go now if you are just watching this so that way you know how to put triangles together without losing points you're good you can go ahead and stop now if you are doing the block i'm going to show you the sashing and then give you some some tints so that way you don't mess something up by accident so half of the blocks in order to get that little pinwheel look in the sashing you're going to have the sashing be on the sides of the block like this and about half it's an odd number of blocks but the other half are going to have it going across the top so just make sure you're paying attention to your instructions and your printed instructions to go with this and raspberry sherbet so that way you don't mess that up so check that out and i'm going to get these sewn together it's super easy all we're going to do is we're just going to stitch these to the sides of our sashing and then we're going to attach everything to the center so what i'd like to do so i don't have to lay everything back out again is i'm just going to flip my guys right sides together here and i'm just going to put a pin in the side of it so that way i can keep it together i'm going to pull this out before i actually start sewing but i just want everything to be together and ready to go so that way i can sew one side and then the other side and only have to lay it back out to press one time would save some time if you are doing this as chain piecing where you've got everything stacked and laid up on top of each other you can kind of do this as you're going as well it's totally up to you okay so now for this part this part you gotta focus a little more on because we still have two little bits here that are we need to make sure that they are end up where they're supposed to so i'm gonna go ahead and flip that right sides together and then i'm gonna flip it over so that way i can see my points up here now you may need to do a little bit of easing in as well it's entirely possible that your block shrunk a little bit when you put everything together but again as long as it's not way way too small you're going to be totally fine and you don't need to worry about cutting everything down to size but if it's like significantly smaller like a quarter inch then you're going to want to make sure you're doing that basically anything more than a 16th of an inch difference you're going to want to make adjustments in this case we're not that far off and so we don't need to worry about it i can just pin at the corners and then i can pin at the seams of where my nine patches come together and that's going to be sufficient i can use anything else in beyond that i'm gonna do the same thing for this side i'm gonna flip it over and do my painting and then i'm going to sew and we're going to press one more time and then we're almost done with this block [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right so i don't really need to do this for the little sashing strips because it's just tiny points but because we've got a lot going on at these points here which look fantastic by the way i'm going to go ahead and give them a spritz with my spray mister and iron it before we sew our sashing strips to the block to finish it off so again if you're following along with the pattern keep in mind that about half of the blocks are going to have your back order fabric on the sides and about half of them are going to have them on the top it also matters which direction these are going so that way you can create that pinwheel in the end so make sure you're paying attention to your pattern so you get that correct all right so my block looks the way it's supposed to in the pattern i've got my up and down is the large triangles as the fat quarters and my side to side or the large triangles as the background so that's what you have to pay attention to and then where that shifts the varies based on which block you're doing all right so i just have to pin these together now i've got a choice to make because we have two points here on the sides but we also have two points here now i don't know about you but i'm going to pay more attention to if these points match than if these points match so i'm going to go ahead and have these be my up ones so i'm going to go ahead and flip this this way that way i can make sure to have this part here up so i can make sure that that center star which is the focus is going to have all the points look the way they should now you have to make these decisions on your own as you're working with other patterns you have to think where's my focus what do i need to be absolutely fantastic and so you just make those choices as you go and sometimes you end up ripping things out and doing them again and that's totally fine but if you use these techniques most of the time you're not going to have to do that all right i'm going to spray the entire block with my spray mister this is just water in here i prefer to use that instead of steaming my iron because i feel like it doesn't distort the fabric as much and then also it keeps your iron from getting gross and spitting water eventually and what i just do is i'm just working my way across i'm lifting the iron slightly as i move across so i'm not like ironing it like you would a shirt but i'm just pressing as i go along this is going to get it nice and really really flat and it'll make it really ready to do some really cool things when we get to the quilting stage so here we have it it is our final block it looks fantastic our points are all almost exactly where they should be there's a couple that are off by just a hair but they're pretty sticky clothes i'm really pleased with these results everything is super flat and we didn't start with absolute perfection when we were working with all these we had a couple of flying geese units that were a little bit off in size where we had to eat some stuff in this one here we eased in a full 16 of an inch and it still looks really good and it's really flat and it's pretty stinking square and it is the size it should be so we're going to do just fine when we put this together in a full quilt and it's going to look fantastic i hope you are enjoying our triangle master class in the next video we're going to teach you how to do mitered corners so that way when you have lots of triangles like this you can keep those angles going out into the border as well so our our skinny border once we put it all together it's going to have that i really hope you are enjoying this series i am having a lot of fun doing it i love working with these fabrics i think they're really pretty and also i really love helping you guys demystify some things that maybe have been giving you trouble for a long time and i know that losing triangle points and cutting them off and having them be way out in no man's land is a common problem that people have as well as things not turning out the size we want them to so hopefully these tips and tricks that we've gone over have helped you get things to be the correct size and in today's video know how to fudge it when it isn't quite right so make sure you hit that subscribe button so that way you don't miss any of our tutorials on youtube they're always free to watch and also go ahead and sign up for our email list over at shop.quiltedx anonymous.com you get 10 off your first purchase when you join that list and also we make sure you don't miss any of our new tutorials and our new fabric that comes out if we still have kits available you can get a kit of this but we always have different fat quarters so you can make it your own as well and just make sure that if you're getting a kit you can also get the pattern for free so you can follow along with this quilt along i've really been enjoying it and we will see you in the next one until then happy quilting [Music] you

Channel: Quilt Addicts Anonymous

Views: 7,081

Rating: 4.9315405 out of 5

Keywords: triangle masterclass, quilt triangles, half square triangles, double pinwheels, hourglass, quarter square triangles, flying geese, mitered corner, quilting tutorials, quilt tutorials, Quilt Addicts Anonymous, Quilt Addicts Anonymous tutorials, Stephanie Soebbing

Id: ZJ9QOA8Hc6w

Length: 35min 15sec (2115 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021