Half Square Triangle Table Runner Tutorial

Hello! How about another tutorial?! This one is for a table runner, and you can plan it with a single collection or use half-square triangles left over from a variety of projects to use your stash!

I had hundreds of half-square triangles left over from making my five large

Creekside quilts.
Some of them were used to make the Happy Days wall hanging and Starry Night mini quilt, but I had even more left over after those two project.  I kind of wish I had counted the HST’s before I started using them in other projects–it would have been fun to know how many I started with!

Anyway, I came up with a couple of new
projects for HST’s and am sharing the first of those projects today (wait until you see the other one…hint: it’s a pillow)!


So…for this table runner you will need a total of 72 half-square triangles measuring at 2 ½″ unfinished.  If you don’t have left-over HST’s the best way to make them fast is to cut 36 squares 3″ x 3″ from your scraps along with 36 background squares 3″ x 3″. Then use my half-square triangle tutorial to make 72 HST’s.

Sew the 72 HST’s into eight nine-patch units as shown. Since I was working with a limited number of fabrics I made two groups of four identical blocks so I could control which fabrics would be next to each other in the runner. If you are working with more fabrics or scraps you won’t need to worry about this as much.

Next, lay out the eight blocks into two rows of four blocks each. Move blocks around as necessary until you get a look you like.

Sew the blocks in each row together. At this point you can sew the two rows together or…

you can flip the bottom row as I did to create a diamond pattern right down the center. At this time your runner top will measure approximately 12 ½″ x 24 ½″ which is a nice size. 

Cut a piece of backing and batting at least 16 ½″ x 28 ½″ and layer, quilt, and bind! I stitched “in the ditch” along the diagonal lines and used two strips cut 2 ¼″ x width of fabric to piece my binding.

My runner is now at home on our small breakfast table along with my new pieced place mats!

Happy quilting!  Thanks so much for stopping by!