Another new guy question: Triangle cuts

[jbrewer]

OK, so my first top (and back) are done and will be at the long armer on Monday. Of course we all know we can't just stop at one. That's why we are all here; we are addicts.

I want to make a 30-60-90 triangle quilt. The pattern is all over the place. BY match, the 2 side should be x and 2x with the hypotenuse being 3^(1/2)*x. Sounds great EXCEPT for seam allowance. Anybody done this before or similar? What is throwing me is the points coming together.

For the math impaired, Pythagoreus did the hard part for us. A 30 60 90 triangle is a right triangle with one side one length, the other side twice that length and the hypotenuse (the longest side and opposite the right angle) being the square root of 3 times the short side.

In my head, In a 6" sq block, I can cut 4 30 60 90 triangles. The problem is that there is no allowance for the 1/4" seam. By doing so, what is the easiest quickest way of pounding out some triangles?

[jbrewer]

By the way, nothing easy was ever worth doing!

[GuitarGramma]

Two suggestions:

1. Buy the book "One Block Wonder" for a full explanation of what to do.

2. Save money by just buying a 60 degree ruler, the kind with a point at the top, not a small flat area. Your seam allowances basically just work out because you're just cutting off 1/4" from each side so you still have equilateral triangles, just smaller.

So for the quilt type pictured, Here's what to do (there will be a lot of waste).
-Get a black jelly roll and a white jelly roll
-Sew each black strip to a white strip. You'll have 42 strips, black on the right, white on the left, 4 inches wide.
-Square up the bottom of each strip.
-Using your 60 degree ruler, line up the top point right on the black/white seam. Fit the ruler to the width of the bottom of your strip. Trim away the sides.
-Square up the bottom of the strip and repeat until all your black/white strips are cut.

You now have a whole pile of equilateral triangles, black on the right, white on the left. Sew these together in threes.

You now have a whole pile of half hexagons made of alternating black and white triangles. Lay these to make your full hexagons. Sew these rows together.

Voila! Your quilt top is done.

[Snip Snip]

That looked so complicated till GuitarGramma explained it!

[Snickeldorfer]

what do you call an engineer and quilter mix?
a quengineer? a enginilter?

[DebbieDoodle]

You lost me at the first hypotenuse! My oldest son is a mechanical engineer, and my mind just turns off when he begins to explain his projects at work to me. LOL!

[klgls]

Where's that coffee!!

[Sylvia H]

Foundation paper piecing is one way to assure those pointy points! I would be looking for a foundation paper piecing pattern to use for this design. You could probably make your own pattern, and then use your printer to make as many copies as needed. Here is a medallion I did using this technique.

[CraftHer]

jbrewer, have you considered doing a quilt based on Penrose Tiling? A friend of mine introduced this to me. He is a bit more of a math nerd than I am, but I thought this would make an awesome quilt! It's not a new idea, but from you posts, I thought you'd like the mix of math and art.

Here's an explanation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_tiling

[IndyQltr78]

There is a group in this forum that has made the Pythagoras' Lute quilt. It is a paper pieced wall hanging. The pattern is available at this site--
https://equiltpatterns.com/Pythagora...-Quilt-Pattern
This is great for those of us who decided to leave the geometric formulas to someone else.
Good luck with your design. Please share a picture when your finish.