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Quilt Blocks - The Long Triangle

© Jeanne Walsh

In my June article we tackled a "halfsquare" triangle, one made from cutting a square in half diagonally. But some quilt blocks have long triangles, actually made by cutting a rectangle diagonally. These long triangles come to a skinny little point and that is hard to piece. Stretch that long bias side and the block will not lay down. Let's analyze this next block "54/40 or Fight" a traditional block from the mid 1800's that contains EIGHT long triangles.

First determine the size. This block is 12 1/2 inches unfinished, that is before it is sewn with other blocks.

Quilt blocks are made up of units and subunits. Look across the top, beginning on the left. There is a fourpatch, a triangle unit like the one at the top of this article, and another fourpatch, or three units across. They are equal in size so I will divide 12 by 3 and find that these units are 4 inches square, add in seam allowance 1/4 inch on all sides, makes 4 1/2 inches square unfinished.

Note the rest of the block. There are two more rows of three units and only two different units! We can breeze through this in no time!

THE FOURPATCH

The squares in the fourpatch measure 2 inches. Rotary cut strips 2 1/2 inches (remember the seam allowance) wide of two fabrics (one light, one medium) WOF (width of fabric). Sew together, press seam to darker side and cut into 2 1/2 inch segments. Stitch together five fourpatch units, matching center seams, keeping a 1/4 inch seam. Press. Measure the units to be sure they are 4 1/2 inches.

Long Triangle Unit

The second unit is where we find the long triangles. Oh, those stretchy bias edges . . . let's see if we can find some way around having to cut out triangles and sew those edges. That unit is 4 1/2 inches square so we will start with a 4 1/2 inch light square. Rotary cut 4 1/2 inch strip WOF and from it cut four 4 1/2 inch squares.

Now the long triangle. Do you recognize that this triangle is actually a rectangle cut diagonally? If you could measure across the bottom of the triangle you would find that is 1/2 the size of that light block plus seam allowance or 2 1/2. So we will cut some rectangles that size, one 4 1/2 inch strip WOF from dark fabric, from it cut eight 2 1/2 inch segments.