Half-Square Triangles...HSTs

Peg's comment, "One of my bug-a-boos is those *** triangles - somehow they always end up out of square!! Got any tips?" 

Well, I don't think any of this is new, but I'll show you what I did for my November block. This may be new to someone...

I cut out two 2+7/8" squares of fabrics.

Then I draw a line, corner to corner.

Then I stitch a scant  1/4" seam from the line on one side...

... and another "scant"  1/4" seam on the other side of the line.

I end up with this...

I cut on the drawn line, and have two triangles...

It is very important to set the seams with the iron at this point. Doing this sets the stitch line into the fabric, which aids in a finished crisp seam. 

 At many retreats, I see a lot of quilters omit this step.

Then I open the triangle, iron a nice crisp seam, and I have one of two HSTs. I check to make sure I haven't ironed a fold in close to the seam, which would reduce the size of the HST.

Now I check to see if I've got the proper 2+1/2" finished HST.

 You can see I have a tad to cut off. This is because I used a scant 1/4". It is better to have some to trim off at this point, than to be short... I make sure my diagonal line on my ruler is on my seam line before I cut...

My trimmed HST. Oops! My ruler shifted when I grabbed my camera, and didn't notice till my photos were on the comp...

... and here is the 2+1/2" HST.

Sewing the two HSTs together... 

 I made sure my seam was just shy of a 1/4". When you have a lot of pieces like this in a block, you can easily loose 1/8" to 1/2" in your finished block.

Two joined HSTs... Measures 2+1/2" x 5+1/2"...

 

 In this sample I used two 2+7/8" squares, to end up with two 2+1/2" HST sections, like in my November block.

There was a lot of dense seams/intersections on that block, so it is equally important on how you direct the seams while sewing. and then pressing, so the block lays as flat as possible and hopefully end up the correct size... I lucked out on this block!

 In my September block, I started off with two 4+7/8" to get two 4+1/2" HSTs.

In this October block I started off with two 3+7/8" to get two 3+1/2" HSTs.

I hope this info is helpful to some of you quilting blog readers...

Happy stitchings...

Myra