Sad and neglected.
That’s how my sewing machine must have felt.
For a long time, we were the best of friends. I would spend hours and hours in front of my machine. We had a lot of wonderful times together making quilts – from pinwheels to chevron and from pennants to houndstooth. (See all of my quilting projects here.)
But even though I neglected my machine for so long, it welcomed me back with open arms. And I have this great herringbone quilt to show for it. (It’s another version of the herringbone quilt I made back in February.) 
I think my favorite part is the pop of orange. It’s such an unexpected way to spruce up a quilt with solids. (I love quilts with solid fabrics.) This was a gift for my friend Sheri, who had her sweet little boy before Christmas.
I created the herringbone pattern using 100 half-square triangles.(I LOVE LOVE LOVE half-square triangles because they are simple to piece and you can make so many different patterns. And if you are extra lazy – like I am – you can start with precuts and skip a whole step. I’ve used half-square triangles to create herringbone, chevron, pinwheel, and a bunch of other varieties.)
A few notes:
- The finished quilt is 10 blocks wide by 10 blocks tall. I cannot for the life of me remember how large the finished squares were. See below for more reasons why I never share a tutorial.
- I started with 50 white and 50 gray 5 inch blocks. I love Kona solids, so I used a charm pack of Kona white and a charm pack of Kona coal. Seriously so easy.
- The backing and binding are made from this Moda orange dot.
I often get comments about making a tutorial for my quilts. There are a few reasons I stay away from tutorials.
- I don’t consider myself a great quilter. I like to quilt. I do it often. (Or at least I used to.) But I cut corners and teach myself and don’t really follow any rules. You should learn from someone really good at this quilting thing.
- I am a TERRIBLE procrastinator. Instead of doing something in advance, I’m almost always starting a quilt about 3 weeks after I wanted it to arrive. So I don’t have time to walk through the steps.
- I rarely follow a tutorial. I eyeball almost everything. I figure out the end pattern after doing most of the steps. And the layout just comes sort of naturally for me. So it’s hard to explain it.
Maybe you don’t really care why I don’t walk through the steps. But, I will try to share some links to check out if you want to make something similar.
Making Half Square Triangles by PS I Quilt
This is the tutorial I first used to make half square triangles. Super simple and quick.
Trimming Half Square Triangles by Little Miss Shabby
This is a great, time-saving way to trim your HST to be the same size.
Now, let’s get back to some pictures of my photo shoot with this beauty.
I finished it with simple, (not) straight lines for quilting.
And then I added some orange dots for the binding and backing.
Machine Binding your Quilt by Red Pepper Quilts
I think this is a great tutorial to join your binding, handle corners and machine finish.
It’s not perfect. None of my quilts are. But it felt good to be cutting and stitching and pressing again. I think I’ll do it again soon.
What size is this quilt?
I love this quilt and am inspired to give it a go. Can I ask, what weight of cotton fabric you used for your quilt please?
I think I used Kona Solids for this – it’s a broadcloth quilting fabric.
I have a question. This is gorgeous, by the way! LOVE the orange! Could you get the same results by sewing strips of gray/white (1 of each) and cutting them at a 45 degree angle? That would give me less seams (my arch nemesis) and half square triangles. I may be totally off on this idea. I’m not an advanced quilter by any means! 🙂
Hmmm… that’s a good question. I’ve never done it that way, but I’m sure you could rework it.
Thanks! What are the measurements of this quilt, if you don’t mind my asking?
Hi Kim! I had pinned this quilt on Pinterest and I just clicked on it to see it more because I’m thinking of making one, and I was so excited to see that it came from you! It made me smile and think of the good ol’ Silhouette days. Good job! I love it!!!
For someone who flies by the seat of their pants, this is pretty dang precise! For reals. I wish I had that kind of wing-it-sewing-talent!
Beautiful quilt! I’m super in love with orange. 🙂
That turned out awesome. I love grey with anything. The orange is just perfect. Good job for sure! Makes me wanna have a baby! JK dot dot dot
Kim that is a beauty. Great color combination and love the double line quilting. Of course it’s the puckering that really gets me every time.
I always love your quilts!This one is fantastic. Love that pop of orange. I always feel exactly the same way about posting sewing tutorials . . . I’m mainly self-taught, and am always ‘cheating’ and cutting corners when I sew, so no one should be following my instructions 🙂 You have me wanting to make a quilt–the last one I made was for my newest nephew . . . who will be turning 3 this month! I guess it’s been a while.
This is lovely, I love the colors. Great job!
My daughter and I like making quilts together. Typically, I piece out the top, we pin the top, bottom and padding together, and she takes it home to finish the hand quilting part, then brings it back for me to bind. This time, she and her boyfriend are doing the hand quilting for a baby quilt we pieced for his sister who is due in May. Hopefully, it’ll be ready by then, as my daughter is in nursing school and her boyfriend has never sewn before! We all thought it would be nice though for his sister and her husband to receive a quilt for the baby that her brother (the baby’s uncle) helped make. I know I would have loved to have received something like that!
What a wonderful gift and a great tradition. And to hand-quilt! That’s very impressive!