Are triangles evil?
 

Hey all- I'm very new to quilting (less than a year) and as of yet have only done piecing with squares/rectangles. I am very interested in doing the fun patterns with triangles but am a bit wary. I'm afraid they will be complicated and I will end up ruining some of my precious and pretty new fabric stash. I also want to avoid overly frustrating myself. Life is stressful enough and hobbies are supposed to be enjoyable. What say you more experienced quilters? Should I just jump in or get a little more straight line experience?

Well, I think some triangles are evil, but many are merely misguided. ;) Some are simply capricious or mischievous.

For a while, I thought HST's (half-square-triangles) would ruin my life, but I'm doing a lot better with them. My biggest improvement came when I started using Triangulations - it's a CD with many, many, many sizes of HST's & QST's.

Every month, I get ten fat eighths in a Block of the Month kit. The blocks are called "Lady of the Lake" and they consist of one large HST block and nine small ones along two edges. Triangulations lets me print exactly the same size every month and my blocks have been consistently sized for almost a year. :) Of course, you DO have to get that pesky 1/4" seam right, but this month I noticed very few lost or floating points on my blocks - yahoooo! What a change! :D

Good luck to you and have fun with it!

you are probably ready to jump in and try it as long as you keep your seems 1/4 they will be fairly easy to do You could start with a pattern that only has a few triangles in it for your first time or how about making a rug mug or potholder with triangles than you will know if you like it or not

The biggest help for me with triangles is to use spray starch. If you can keep your seams consistent and are using starch, it's not so bad. Try a couple of sample blocks first to build your confidence.

This is one way. I have used this one once.
http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutoria...es-t74134.html
I like the one in the middle of this churn-dash pattern best. (I make it a little bigger then cut it down.)
http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutoria...al-t73577.html

One of the first quilts I ever did was a Dutchman's Puzzle..

http://www.quilterscache.com/D/Dutch...zzleBlock.html

I had no trouble and it went together in a snap. THEN I started reading about how hard triangles were and how terrible they were and I psyched myself out and didn't try another one for years. How ding dong is that?? My advice to you is do what you want and find what works for you. Not all your pieces are going to go together like you want them too..but remember how our grandma's did it..cardboard templates and scissors. =) And NO FEAR! =) Enjoy your journey and have fun! =)

Triangles are manageable as long as you keep in mind that you WILL have bias somewhere on the triangle, so you have to be careful not to stretch it when you're sewing or pressing. (Press up and down, never side to side.)

Also - starch the snot out of the fabric before you cut the triangles! :)

Remember when making HST to cut your fabric bigger then pattern says. Example if it say cut your fabric 2 7/8 cut it 3 or 3 1/4 the after sewn together trim to size needed > here it would be 2 1/2.
Relax and have fun.

looking at your avatar. Did you think they were evil then?

My avatar is of the strip twist quilt pattern by bonnie hunter. The directions for that quilt were different from cutting out HST and QST (as I understand it). In her directions, you sandwich the strip sections together, cut a square and then cut the square on a diagonal, hold those pieces together and sew along the diagonal, then press open to give a square. Maybe I need to find a book with patterns and detailed directions spelled out. I'm not too good at improvising yet.