2023 Block of the Month

by Tricia Williams, IEMQG member

This year I thought it would be fun to make a BOM quilt that consists solely of same-sized half-square triangles (HST’s).  This modern take on a sampler quilt was designed by Stephanie Jacobson of the Omaha Modern Quilt Guild and is used with her permission.

Each of the twelve blocks is made up of 16 HST’s, so you will need a total of 192 HST’s.  The size of your finished quilt will depend on the size of HST’s you decide to use (see chart below), and whether you choose to add sashing for additional negative space.

There are several methods for creating HST’s, and some helpful resources will be provided below.  If you want, you can sew your HST’s as leaders and enders when you are chain piecing other projects, and then pull 16 HST units for each monthly block when it is introduced.  I hope this will make it easy to participate in our Block of the Month program!

For fabric selection, you could use just two colors – a light and a dark, or you could do this with scrappy darks and a consistent light, or you could do scrappy darks and scrappy lights.  Another fun idea would be to use a consistent light background throughout, and a different dark color for each month’s block. Here are some examples below. If you would like to search for more ideas, follow the hashtag #modernhstbom

Scroll to the very bottom of the page to see some finished modern HST quilt tops. Although the blocks are different than ours, they are good examples of different looks achieved with different fabric selections.

Pick your HST size and finished quilt size using the chart below

With all the different possibilities, it will be fun to see our finished BOM projects at the end of the year!

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June Block

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July Block

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August Block

September Block

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October Block

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November Block

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December Block

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Resources and Tutorials

Here are three easy ways to make HST’s by Whole Circle Studio. CLICK HERE

Here’s a YouTube tutorial for making HST’s two at a time. CLICK HERE

Here is a hack using diagonal seam tape to make two-at-a-time HST’s super fast!

Here is a Youtube tutorial on how to spin your seams to reduce bulk. CLICK HERE

Here are a few examples of finished HST quits. Follow #modernhstbom for more examples

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