TUTORIAL: Halfway Block

It is called Halfway because it started with a pizza box full of half-square triangles.

HALFWAY QUILT BLOCK

The secret is that there is only ONE set of cutting directions, but you can lay it out FOUR different ways. Of course, you can just do it one way for the entire quilt. There is nothing wrong with that. If you use more variations you will get more movement in the final quilt.

Here you can see the difference between FOUR variations on the left and TWO layouts on the right. It is up to you! Just get to work on those leftover half square triangles (HSTs), or create more for the occasion.

12-1/2″ Block

CUTTING

Each block requires the following: 1 6-1/2″ half square triangle, 7 3-1/2″ half square triangles, 20 2″ half square triangles. It works best if there is good contrast between the two sides.

ASSEMBLY

Now we get to the tricky-to-explain part. This is my original idea sketch. As you will see, I made myself notes: “cut the same, position differently”; “dark at the bottom, light on top” and “get four blocks by rotation 90 degrees each time.”

NOTE: The blocks pictured above are Variation 1 on the LEFT and Variation 2 on the RIGHT.

If you follow those directions (and ask questions when they do not make sense) you will get the blocks you expect. The image below will show how I assembled the blocks by creating sub-assemblies. The same groupings will work no matter which version of the block you are creating.

NOTE: You may want to print out the sketch so as to be able to physically turn it with the number of the desired variation at the bottom of the page when you are working to help you keep it straight.

Ta-dah! Before you know it, you will have blocks. I used 56 blocks (which seemed appropriate, as each block has 56 pieces) to create a queen-ish sized quilt 84″ x 96″.

Halfway Gallery

Your beautiful creations here…