Indian Hatchet Tutorial

Despite my resolve to not start anymore quilts this year, I did! But it's a leader/ender quilt.

After I sewed the binding for the Bloom/Bouquet quilt, I had cut off triangles to contend with. Instead of letting them accumulate in a box for years, I dug out white squares from the 2.5" square box and sewed a few of them. I took pictures while I was doing this and wrote a tutorial.

Recently I had an Indian Hatchet quilt finished, it took me many years to piece the blocks for this quilt. It originally lived in my retreat bag as a 'take along to retreat' project. 

There were many kind remarks about the quilt but I could tell people didn't understand how I pieced the blocks. And since Blogger isn't very cooperative anymore, I'm not able to respond to people's comments. That's why I'm making the tutorial.

The blocks are very simple, you need a 2.5" square of background fabric and a cutoff triangle from binding or whatever. It doesn't matter what size the triangle is. If you want to cut triangles from a fat quarter or yardage, that's ok, it's your quilt, you use whatever fabric you want. (The green cutting mat makes the white fabric look pink)

Lay the triangle upside down onto the background fabric. I don't measure the triangle, I just eye it and see if it looks like it will cover the corner. Sometimes it doesn't but I don't resew it unless it's really off.

Stitch the triangle to the corner of the background fabric.

Press triangle to one side. I normally wait to press until I have a bunch of them sewn. A bunch is more than 5 but less than 100. You don't have to press, you could wait to press until the other side is attached but the triangle lays flatter for me if I press them separately.

Backside of block after first pressing.

This is the salad box I keep my triangles in. There is a lid, lids are important in case you drop the box!

Sew the 2nd triangle on the opposite corner.

Press to the side.

Trim away background fabric. I take a scissors and just cut it off, it doesn't matter what the width is. Don't over think this!

Take a ruler and trim the blocks to 2.5".

Trimmed block.

Two trimmed blocks.

When you sew your blocks together, the colored fabric corners are sewn together. If you want something different, you could alternate the colored corners. Look closely at these blocks, the triangles are all different sizes. I didn't cut that that way, that's how they turned out after I sewed them. This quilt probably has some HST's I sewed a small triangle to the background fabric corner.

I sewed the blocks together in groups of 16. You can sew your blocks together in whatever size you want. You can use larger background squares to sew your triangles onto. Take this pattern and make it your way, have fun!

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down