1 way to avoid ‘finicky measuring’ when making Half Square Triangles

In yesterday’s post, I showed you the bright colorway of Northcott Canvas fabric collection, gave you a glimpse of the quilt we’re making this week and also went over Northcott Product Finder on their webpage. Did you check out the Product Finder to see how close you are to getting this beautiful fabric for the quilt?

Today, we’ll start playing with the fabrics and do a bit of sewing.

To get this quilt moving along we need to cut the fabrics. I prepared a PDF file with all the cutting instructions. The PDF file will show you the most effective way to cut your fabrics too. When you’re finished cutting your fabrics we’ll go on to the next step.

Following the instructions given in the PDF file you downloaded and printed earlier, once you’ve finished cutting the strips you’ll need to sub-cut them into smaller pieces. Read on.

Let’s look at half square triangles (HSTs).

We all have our preferred way to make HSTs, here’s mine.

Quilting reference books say that when cutting your fabric to make an HS, you need to add ⅞” to your finished block size. In other words, if your finished block size is 4” x 4” then you would cut 4⅞” x 4⅞” square. If you sew a perfect ¼” seam and your fabrics were cut perfectly to size, then yes, your finished square once sewn and pressed open will be 4½” x 4½” unfinished square.

Now I’ve never been afraid to admit that sometimes my seams are a little off “perfect”. The work around that I now use is: instead of cutting my fabric squares 4⅞” x 4⅞” I add an extra ⅛” and cut my squares 5” x 5”! Gives me a little wiggle room. Once sewn I simply trim to the desired size. Yes, it’s an extra step and more work but I get the results I want.

The next step is to make a diagonal line from corner to corner on the back of each 5” x 5” square of the cream-colored fabric.

Pair each of the 50 – 5” x 5” squares of cream-colored fabric to a corresponding 5” x 5” square of the yellow, green and orange fabrics.

Sew ¼” along each side of the diagonal line.

When finished sewing the seams, cut along the marked diagonal line using a rotary cutter.

…And the last 2 steps for today are:

1. Press all seams, then
2. Trim to square off every piece to ensure a 4½” X 4½” square.

We accomplished a lot today!

• cutting the fabrics
• sewing HSTs, and then
• trimming a total of 100 HSTs!

We need a snack and a nap. Join me tomorrow we’ll make Quarter Square Triangles using Northcott Canvas fabrics!