Sew an easy and beautiful baby quilt with half square triangles. You can use just two different fabrics or mix it up with lots of different scraps like I did.

I love half square triangles, known as HST’s in the quilting world. They are easy and fun to make. Sewing them together is easy and repetitive, it’s my my ‘quilt therapy.’

This blog post has been converted to an optional PDF that’s optimized for printing. Find it here. The blog post below is totally free to read, print, and sew! Just hit CTRL +P on your computer to print. The PDF download for $2 is totally optional.

This quilt design uses 144 half square triangles and has a simple background colored border. This free quilt pattern includes instructions for making the half square triangles and then sewing them together.

If you love to use your Accuquilt fabric cutter like I do, I’ll share the optional cutting die numbers to make this pattern Accuquilt friendly. Using an Accuquilt is optional, but I love it!

However, when I made this baby quilt I used 144 leftover HST’s from sewing my Fat Quarter Fancy II quilt. You can also make leftover HST’s at the same time when you are sewing my first Fat Quarter Fancy Quilt.

Tip: The finished size of this quilt is 42’’ square. My HST’s were 3 1/2’’ before I sewed them together (3’’ finished), and the width of the border strips matched the half square triangles.

If you want to change the size of this quilt by using different sizes of HSTs and matching border strips, just multiply the finished size of the HST’s by 14. So 4’’ (finished) HST’s will make a 56’’ square quilt, 5’’ (finished) HST’s will make a 70’’ square quilt, and so forth. Tips for making different sizes of HST’s can be found here.

Let’s get to the free quilt pattern!

Child’s Play – Easy Half Square Triangle Baby Quilt Pattern

Approximately 42’’ x 42’’ square.

You will need:

• 1 1/2 yards of background fabric

• about 1 yard total of other coordinating fabrics or scraps – enough to cut 72 squares 4’’ x 4’’.

• 48’’ square of quilt batting

• 3 yards of quilt backing fabric

• 1/2 yard of binding fabric

Cutting:

From your coordinating print fabrics, cut:

• 72 squares, 4’’ x 4’’

From your background fabrics, cut:

• 72 squares, 4’’ x 4’’

• 2 strips 3 1/2’’ x 36 1/2’’ (side borders)

• 2 strips 3 1/2’’ x 42 1/2’’ (top and bottom borders)

If you have an Accuquilt cutter, you can quickly sew the half square triangles together without using the shortcut method below. The following dies will work with this quilt pattern:

• 3” finished HST 55009
• 3 1/2” strip die 55032