- In quilting, after you learn how to sew
squares and rectangles together,
the next skill you need to learn
is how to make a half square triangle.
It appears simple but then this happens,
and then this happens, and this happens.
So today's episode is all about making
the perfect half square triangle.
So stick with me, and I'll show you how to do it.
(lighthearted music)
Hi there, I'm Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts.
I give you tips, tricks and strategies
to help you make the quilt that you want to make.
So for those who do not know,
an HST is half square triangle.
Not only is it a stunning block on it's own,
but it's also a foundation piece
for many other quilt block patterns.
And making it appear so simple, you take your finished size
and add seven eighths and cut a square that size.
Then you cut that on a 45 degree angle,
sew two together, press, flip it and voila.
(laughs) Not, so there's twice as many ways
to mess up an HST block, compared to a square block.
So let's take it step by step.
(lighthearted music)
You need to have your fabric lie flat,
so if your sewing area is messy or cluttered,
make sure you clear it out and give yourself
some space to cut properly.
If your fabric is coming out of storage,
it might need a good press.
You don't need to press the whole piece,
you just need to press the area that you're using.
Make sure that your pieces
are lying on the straight of grain.
Quilting cotton has two grains, a crosswise grain
and a lengthwise grain, and we need our pieces
to be square with this.
Unfortunately some fabric gets pulled off grain
at the factory, and you need to fix it before we cut.
If you can pull one thread from one side
of your fabric to the other,
you know you've got a clean cross grain.
Here you can see my cross grain is skewed
about half an inch.
Just grab two points on your fabric on a 45
and just tug on your bias.
If your skew is large, you might have to do it
two or three times.
(lighthearted music)
90 Percent of the time when we're cutting the pieces
for an HST, we are going to make a square first.
Now you want your ruler to lie flat,
so you want your pressure to come from above.
If it's still a little bit wobbly and shifting around,
use my tenth tip from my Dollar Store Hack video.
Just apply a little bit of tape to the bottom,
that should give it enough friction to stop it from moving.
Start with a sharp blade, if you can't remember
the last time you changed your blade, change it now.
And when you cut, you need to keep your blade
running along the side of your ruler.
And the best way to do that is by pushing away from you,
stand in front of it straight and push.
Now if your blade is sharp
it should cut through it like butter.
I like to stand in the corner of my table
so I can cut one and then I pivot myself,
and then I cut a second one.
Then you turn your mat and you cut the other two.
The guide for cutting is to add seven eighths
to your finished block side, I add one inch.
Frankly one inch is easier to find on the ruler
and it just gives me a little bit more
margin of error to play with.
If you are a beginner or you're still finding
HSTs hard to do, you might consider adding
an inch and a quarter until you get more comfortable.
And don't be embarrassed to do that.
A wise teacher once told me that ease of construction
beats out conserving fabric every time.
So if you need the extra measurement, take it.
(lighthearted music)
If you don't get this 45 degree angle perfect,
you will be out in your block every single time.
So it is important to get it right.
If I'm just making one or two HST's,
I will use the 45 degree mark on my mat.
I place my block where the 45 degree line intersects
the vertical and the horizontal.
I lay my ruler along the 45 and I cut,
but most of the time I am doing two at a time,
even if I only need one, I make two and I use
the extra one on the back, or it just goes
in my orphan block pile.
And for that, instead of cutting on the 45 here,
what I do is I mark it.
Now if you're making a tonne of HST's and this week
I did a project where I had to make 150,
you might want to try this next method.
Okay, so find the 45 degree mark on your ruler,
you're going to take your masking tape,
and I call it masking tape but it's really painters tape,
and we're going to make a ledge on the 45 degree.
Now if we put the intersection of the 45 degree line
with the corner of our block,
where is the lower corner?
We're going to mark this on the tape and we're going to make
a perpendicular ledge to this first one.
Now slide this onto your square,
just be sure that the measurements are correct.
And if it's right, just go for it.
Get it right the first time and you won't have to fuss
with the other ones.
My last tip here, work in pairs if you can.
Cut them together and then the pairs are ready to go.
(lighthearted music)
So if you're using the one at a time method,
I covered this in detail in my video, on sewing straight.
I'll link the video up here.
Use a header piece, trim the corners and sew.
But honestly it's rare that we only need one HST in a block.
Most patterns have some symmetry in them
which means we need pairs.
So when we're making a pair,
instead of cutting on the diagonal in the previous step,
we're marking with a pen.
So how do you sew straight with this method?
If the blocks are small you can mark the front
of your sewing machine with a piece of masking tape.
Which is marked with a quarter inch seam allowance.
You can align your 45 degree mark with the quarter inch line
to sew a straight line.
Now if it's not a ledge, so you still have to be
fairly aware (chuckles), but with a larger piece
you can't do that because this piece of tape
will be covered up.
So I make a ledge out of some very low tack washi tape,
I make a long strip and I put it on the 45,
actually I put it slightly to the right
so I can do my scant quarter inch.
And in this method I don't trim my corners
because I want to use it as a leverage point
to pull off the tape, and you want to use the low tack,
because when you pull this tape off,
you don't want distortion happening.
And then we just sew down one side.
We remove the tape,
and then we apply it to the other side of the line
and sew down that side.
This ledge can be used over and over again as you need it.
Now before I cut in the middle here,
I find my blocks are a little bit wavy,
I give it one good press with my iron to flatten it.
Now you can cut your blocks on the 45 here,
now this is one step where accuracy is not
going to make or break it.
This is just for your seam allowance so you can eyeball it,
you can cut it with your scissors,
but it's not going to make a difference
in the result of your block.
(lighthearted music)
You will notice an immediate improvement in your accuracy
when you do this step properly.
I have covered this technique thoroughly
in my video on A Really Good Ironing Technique.
And I will connect the video up here.
You set your seams, you flip it.
You push with your fingers perpendicular to the seam,
be sure not to stretch your fabric by going sideways.
Then you take your hot iron and you press, no swishing.
(lighthearted music)
Then challenge number six is trimming.
Now I have met a few quilters who are so accurate in all
the previous steps that they don't need to do this.
For the rest of us, use the HST buster from my video,
Five Sewing Hacks With Masking Tape., I'll link it up here.
So with your low numbers on your ruler on the right
and the high numbers on the left,
flip your ruler over and build a ledge on the far side.
Push the ledge into your 45 degree angle seam,
and then slide it up and line it up in the top corner.
You're going to trim, remember to stand in the corner
of your cutting mat and pivot yourself as you cut.
Spin the mat, slide the ruler down the 45
until the cut corner is at your desired size.
Which right now is your finished size plus a half an inch.
These HST's would make any quilter proud.
(lighthearted music)
One more challenge I will talk about, and that's stamina.
I find making a lot of HST blocks physically demanding,
it's hard on my hands, it's hard on my back.
So I find it best to cycle through in batches,
I will do batches of eight, batches of 16,
alternating sewing, pressing, cutting,
so it's just easier on my body.
And rest and water.
My seams are so much straighter when I'm rested.
So do you have a project where you need to make
a lot of HST's for?
Let me know down in the notes.
There's a couple of other ways of making HST's,
like four at a time and eight at a time methods.
And I'll cover them in my Q and A on December 7th.
(lighthearted music)
Next week I have a fun video with pre-quilt.
There's going to be a challenge and there's going to be prizes,
and you can take your HST's for a test drive, so stay tuned.
So to watch any of the video's I talked about today,
just click on the playlist right here.
I hope you've enjoyed today's video,
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So take care and I'll see you next time.