Easiest Hour Glass blocks EVER

I have a new pattern for you! Bonnie’s Time Chain released today! The fabrics in the cover quilt are all beautiful Benartex Fabrics with the foreground being High Tides by Nicole DeCamp. This pattern uses my hour glass method. It’s not a very common method, but it’s the easiest way I know of for making hour glass blocks. You won’t have to make half square triangles first, and you won’t have to draw any lines. Since this isn’t a very common method, I’ve never been able to find any tutorials for it other than those that I posted on Instagram.

I’ve also never found any size charts for it, so I had to come up with my own. The method is easy, but the math is… not so easy. It’s Pythagorean Theorum. There is an equation, but it’s complicated. No easy conversions like divide by 0.64 like you have with 4 at time HSTs. I actually made a WHOLE LOT of these hour glasses, hoping the geometry would click so I could figure out an equation for sizing. I finally got Mr. SnuggleBugStitching (he’s an engineer) to come in and watch me make them to see if he could help me figure out a formula. He watched me make ONE, just ONE hour glass block and said, “it’s just the hypotenuse.”

This was a face palm moment for me. I couldn’t believe I made that many blocks and didn’t see this. Oh well, that was all I needed. I did come up with a formula for the math and most importantly, a sizing chart! I also have a tutorial for this method. You can actually watch me demo this on You Tube HERE. But, for everyone who doesn’t like watching videos when reading is probably quicker, we’ll go through all the steps in this post too, with pictures!

A little about this pattern

Before we get into the tutorial and sizing charts, here’s a little back story for this pattern. Back in 2022, I decided I wanted to write four patterns named after my grandmothers and two of my great grandmothers who were all quilters. This is the last one of those. Bonnie was my paternal grandmother. She is the grandmother that I got to spend the most time with. She made a few quilts for me. She actually made quilts for her whole family. At one point, all of the beds in the house I grew up in had one of her quilts on it. I remember a Christmas where she gifted a quilt to all 7 of her kids and all 19 of her grandchildren. I think a few of her great grandchildren got one that Christmas too, but I don’t remember how many great grandchildren she had at that point.

I also have a few quilts that I worked on with her. One of those quilts was a Half Square Triangle Hour Glass quilt. I wanted the pattern I named after her to have hour glasses. So, here we are with Bonnie’s Time Chain. The “Time Chain” part is a play on words. Instead of time “change”, I used chain because of the chain design block.

Here’s all of the previous patterns. Click on the names to get the pattern:

Sarah Elizabeth

Chappel Windows – This one was featured in a magazine, Quick + Easy Quilts!

Rella’s Diamonds – This one is a FREE pattern that you can download from Benartex. If you have trouble viewing it, you can click HERE.

You can read more about the grandmother’s quilts HERE.

Tutorial for my hour glass method

Now for the moment you’ve all been waitng for, a full tutorial and a size chart. For the size chart, there are few terms you need to know.
Starting Squares – You’ll use two squares to make an hour glass block. These are those two squares.
Unfinished Block – This is the size that you’ll want to trim you hour glasses down to. We talk about it as “unfinished” because it isn’t in the finished quilt yet. Whatever size you want your block to measure in the finished quilt, you’ll need to add 1/2″ to get the unfinished block size to account for the 1/4″ seam allowance when you sew the blocks together.
Finished Block – This is the size the block should be once the quilt top is sewn together. It accounts for the 1/4″ seam allowance on all sides of the block.

The conversion formula for this doesn’t give a neat number. The diagonal seams in hour glass blocks make it an even messier number. When I made my size chart, I added in a little bit of extra wiggle room for trimming in case your block is a little wonky. Confession… I came up with the formula myself after Mr. SnuggleBugStitching pointed out that the hypotenuse of the starting square ends up being the size of the hour glass block. BUT, I did have to get his help again when I made the sizing chart. He helped me set up the equation in Excel so I wouldn’t have to do the math over and over again. Sometimes it’s good to have an engineer in your life.

Hour Glass Size Chart

Now let’s make some hour glass blocks!
This is the easy part. The math is tricky, but the technique is easy. I do have a video tutorial for this on YouTube. You can watch that HERE. If you prefer to watch just the demo without me talking, you can watch one of those demos on my Instagram HERE. Now, on to the tutorial!

1) You’ll start with two squares. I used one print and one solid white.

2) Stack those two squares right sides together and sew a 1/4″ seam on two opposite sides. I used white thread that’s hard to see in the picture, so I have dashed red lines on the pictures so you can see where the seams are.

3) Line your ruler up with opposite corners of the stack and cut it in half on the diagonal.

4) When you open these up, you’ll have the two pieces for your hour glass blocks. You’ll rotate the pieces so that you can form the hour glass block when you sew them together. Note that the tips of each piece will still be sewn together. They should pull apart easily without causing any damage. BUT, if you’re worried that it will damage the fabric, just pull the thread tails out to unpick those few stitches on the tip first.

5) I like to press the seams to the sides, towards the darker fabric so that the seams will nest. This makes it easier for me to match up the seams. BUT, I’m not really a stickler for pressing in that I’m not going to say there is one RIGHT way. Press whatever way gets YOU the best results. You’ll sew those together with a 1/4″ seam. Press that cross section seam using whatever method works best for you with the pattern you’re working on. For Bonnie’s Time Chain, the diagonal seams in the hour glass blocks don’t have to match up with other diagonal seams, so press whatever way you like best.

Here is one of my completed hour gass blocks.

Now we’ll square these hour glass blocks.
When you trim these, you can’t use the same method you’d use for squaring/trimming half square triangles. If you try to trim them the same way you would trim a half square triangle you’ll end up with a wonky block. There is a little bit of math involved, but it’s not too bad. You can watch my tutorial from trimming these on my Instagram HERE. Here’s the breakdown of the steps:

1) Press your blocks before you square them. You’ll be abe to square it more accurately if it’s laying nice and flat first. You may want to starch or use pressing pressing spray liberally when you press this block. I’ll explain why after we go through the steps.
2) Divide the squared up size you are going for in half. So, if you want to square it to (for example) 8.5” you’ll use 4.25″.
3) Use a square ruler. Put the point where those measurements intersect over the point where the 4 triangles intersect. So, for the 8.5″ example I’d put the intersection of the vertical and horizontal 4.25” lines on that point where the triangles meet. You will also line the diagonal/45 degree on your ruler line up with one of the diagonal seams in your hour glass block.
4) Use your rotary cutter to trim the excess around the side and top of the square ruler.
5) Repeat with the other two sides.

*** NOTE: You will end up with bias edges when you make the blocks using this method. If you are new to sewing “bias edges” may be something you haven’t heard about. The grain of the fabric runs horizontally and vertically. When you cut fabric on the diagonal, you are cutting it on the bias. So, when I say this block has bias edges, it means that the edges of the block are from the part that was cut on the diagonal instead of the part that was cut on the grain. This does make for more stretchiness on the edges of you block. This has NEVER, not even once, caused me any problems. 4 at time half square triangles also have bias edges, and they don’t cause me any problems either. BUT, if the bias edges bother you, I would recommended using starch or pressing spray liberally when you press these blocks. This will help you tame that stretch.

So that’s it! That’s my easy hour glass method. Did you like it?

If you need some fabric to make this pattern (or any pattern), I do have a discount for you from Missouri Star Quilt Company. Through the month of August you can get 20% off your purchase of $50 or more. You don’t need a code, just get to their site from my link (affiliate) for the discount to be automatically applied. Just click HERE to start shopping.

That’s all I’ve got for today

That’s all I have for you today. As always, thank you for taking the time to read my blog.

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Happy quilting!