How To: Make Two Half Square Triangles at Once

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

You can do some pretty amazing things in the quilting world, just by sewing straight lines. Well, cutting and sewing straight lines. It's actually fairly easy as a beginner to create some stunning quilts simply using squares and right angle triangles. These are just a few examples of quilts I adore...and use only rectangles and half square triangles.


(left) Sunshine Quilt — Flying geese pattern in yellow, gray, white by Namoo and (right) Follow the Arrow Quilt by Maureen Cracknell

(left) lily's quilt: by A Midwestern NewYorker and (right) Chevron and on quilt by CanoreRidgeCreations
One of the basic building blocks of most quilts is a 'half square triangle' (the most basic being squares and rectangles). An 'HST' isn't too tricky. I borrowed the directions from about.com. These instructions will make two half square triangles at a time. If you'll be making more than that, try Craftsy's eight HSTs at a time tutorial.

You can do this. I'm a sloppy quilter, and everything turned out okay. It'll turn out okay for you, too.

1. Cut two squares, finished size + 1" (in my case the finished size is 5", so I cut two 6" squares)
2. Draw 45 degree line across wrong side of one fabric square
   
3. Squares, right sides together
   
4. Sew 1/4" seam along one side of line
   
5. Sew along other side of line
   
6. Cut squares along drawn line
   
7. Iron seams open
   
8. Trim seam allowances
   
9. Cut square to desired size, seam connecting corner to corner
   

MAKE MOAR HALF SQUARE TRIANGLES.