2 Ways 2 Half Square Triangles

my story if you don't know it as I started making a ton of applique quilts early early on I was ironing them together fusible web glue and go machine stitching that was the way I designed with fabric later on I got more into teaching patchwork because it was fun for these kinds of videos and I realized wow patchwork is a great skill to have whether you want to do a bunch of applique if you want to be like me when I'm doing intricate patchwork now with a bunch of applique on top which also hides mistakes and that intricate a patchwork or if you want to just play and expand whatnot so I'm gonna try to take each Wednesday when I'm at home and do a little something very basic maybe and maybe I'll even learn something as I go along here as we go so half square triangles that's it today we're doing them a half square triangle that's a big exciting unit right there I'll tell you what let's go overhead so it looks even more exciting but half square triangles are kind of cool because you can do a lot of different things with them and there's a lot of different ways to make them and they're kind of confusing and they can kind of be an issue so I'm gonna slow down and just talk about the single block unit it is a half of a square and half of this square is a triangle I guess that's how it gets its name but we're gonna make a bunch of these so that we can put them together and do other quilt blocks such as pinwheels and broken dishes and our glasses and all of those kinds of things so the best way for us to do this is get some squares and for me there's many ways to do half square triangles at one point in the process you're going to be working on what we call on the bias so you're going to be working where your fabric here is going to be not the straight of grain but you're going to be sewing across so this fabric has grain that goes this way and grain that goes this way we're going to need to stitch across this way cut across this way do something and when you go on the bias you get more stretch than when you go straight of grain I'm not exaggerating that that is a true sample right there happening so pull on it boom and it stretches and that is why unfortunately some of my newer patchwork quilt makers struggle because they get excited about what our basic quilt projects but that bias blows their mind ruins their seam and just know you know I'm saying we don't need that so we're gonna go both directions I'm going to show you my favorite method second I'm going to keep you on the edge of your seat so the first method is something that is often kind of referred to as a trim too true but what we're gonna technically do is we're gonna take a ruler and I'm just gonna take a chalk pencil and even if it's not washable this part will be eventually cut away so it doesn't even have to be washable but I'm just gonna take a chalk pencil of some kind and I'm gonna mark it there across the bias and now back to the board Gamera we need two squares I've only been goofing around with one get two squares of opposing colors these ought to do it for this moment now what I'm going to do is I'm going to put them in if they were prints I would be putting them right sides together just because I'm going to be stitching along that line now we're going to go over to the sewing cam and I'm going to sew not on the dotted line I'm going to sew a quarter of an inch on either side of that chalk line so as I start here I'm gonna take a couple of stitches to back stitch and secure that I'm gonna keep a nice even seam as I go I know there's some shadows in there for everybody I'm doing my best okay now I'm gonna back stitch down there hang on thread cutter is gonna get loud then I could come to the top and use the other side of my presser foot or I am going to practice doing consistency I want everything the same so I'm using by rotating the block the same side of that presser foot now I'm stitching just like I did on the first side along that chalk line with what would be my quarter inch seam allowance now my job is to go ahead and cut right along or close to that chalk line I come to my iron then I'm just gonna hold my darkest of the two fabrics into the air so that as I hit that and I press it I am now pressing it technically to the dark side but I'm going to show you the different ways they go together and we're going to talk about the pros and cons of all the different methods no we're going to talk about the pros and cons of a few different methods there's too many methods that would be here all day long to talk about all the different pros and cons now why is it called trim to true you may be asking me well a lot of us will go to the next step where if this square isn't perfectly that square I want to manipulate it to make it a square and this is the nice thing about this when I'm finished every half square triangle in my staff to become a quilt should all be exactly the same making the construction all the more accurate for something like this I will often spend a little time getting myself dialed in on my table so that at certain point I can actually find my diagonal here and maybe I could have slid this just like this I am still looking at the diagonal on the ruler it's a 45 degree line and it's running straight through my seam so I'm doing a little bit of poor cutting and now it's all been recorded that's terrible news and everyone's gonna know I'm a bad cutter now that is cut accurately let's slide this down now let's say if I needed to make exactly four and a half's this is where the benefit is because now I can slide this around and I can do a four and a half this way I can rotate and at this point we should know it's all square and even though I'm not looking at the diagonal any longer I could cut here and all of my squares would be four and a half I like that a lot because they're finished they're accurate they're beautiful but there's a lot of steps for each and every one of these and I have made quilts that have literally 360 half square triangles or more that was just the last time I counted so this is awesome but it's a little laborious and a little less efficient that's the negative but the positive is now I have a straight of grain on the outside of all four edges there's less stretch so as I continue building my house my quilt from these foundation these basic blocks everything should lay better flatter straighter more crisp over time because I now have against straight edges just like if I was using a regular straight edge square because the next part I'm going to show you doesn't work that way but it's way faster and it can be super accurate in its in itself but it has to be accurate amongst itself that'll make more sense in a minute maybe I don't know keep watching the videos and we're gonna now take two more squares we want these squares to be the exact same sizes again and now what we're gonna do is a different method for making these we're gonna get four by going around all four edges first now I'm gonna start out on the outside edge again I'm going to backstitch even though I'm gonna chop that off in just a second and now what I'm doing I'm literally holding this opposite edge as I sew and I'll do that every single edge just to keep a little bit of nice pressure it helps prevent a pucker later on now as I come back to overhead I want to show you the next couple steps I have learned to take and what I call dog ear I'm gonna just nibble off the threads on the strap side of where I'm going to cut through later and I do this to get the bulk out if you've never worked with multiple corners all coming together and the seam allowances things can get pretty bulky pretty quick and so we don't want that to happen for us I'm gonna lay my ruler through where the threads crossed and I'm going to cut a bias cut now and now without checking I'm gonna lift and drop so that I don't move lift and drop so you don't move eight ear squares or your two triangles now and I'm gonna do this again cutting through and now I have four pieces that when opened up will yield the half square triangles which is super cool as I go over to my ironing board I'm just gonna hold my darkest color in the air and begin to press these if you've never heard this is another bonus technique in today's video fabric has memory what does that mean that means fabric is going to go back to you in the state it was when it was last cool so all often iron a bunch of my squares like this and then I'll just tell a story chat harass the dog or cat or something for a few moments and let this first piece cool right this is where we started and then I'll begin stacking my pieces up as I go if I was piling up my Henry Ford process you know the assembly line of quilt-making that we like to do the advantage is in my opinion is I actually like having a little bit of stretch now this bias out outside edge because if I go to sew these together to make my next design it kind of helps if they weren't all perfectly the same size because I won't take the time to true these down what I've got is these ones here and then I made these ones the same way right before the video went live and they're the same size or size ish so I can cheat these together why would I want to cheat them together well I don't want to work hard let's see what happens so let's build a series of little teepee looking things but let's just make them the same so that we can come back and play with them a little bit more and I can even tell that these two right here are not exactly the same size but again back to my whole Henry Ford concept I want to do everything the same all at once so that as I'm working things stayed the more accurate as possible now that these are built here let's take a second and run them all through the sewing machine oh let's see okay good rita was giving me some information on the corner cam I appreciate that Rita thank you now one of the things I'm gonna try to do here let's go to this camera see if it helps a little bit is I'm gonna do what we call this nesting the seams cuz I was gonna build myself my little teepee now what I want to do is I've got two points that come together and so at this point I happen to have my two what I considered lighter sides going together so I've got about the thickest side possible and that's okay if I was going with all of the same colors I would have ended up with a white and a dark touching and at that point those two pieces of fabric would have tucked in or what we call nest so if you ever read that in the pattern where it says please nester seems you may need to adjust your pressing or something like that and that's bulk management if you're really new to quilting nesting seams you're pressing to the dark sides things like that often help when done routinely in just bulk management I've chained pieced I have a cool little thread cutter on the edge of my machine that I'm just gonna hit real quick and then we can go ahead and begin pressing these open now as I'm doing this I realize I just created some really cool-looking half square triangle shapes what I didn't do is create anything that's going to give us the opportunity to name these blocks such as pinwheel how square you know flying geese those kinds of things because I used multiple colors from multiple families so that was kind of goofy I apologize it always sounds like such a good idea when I'm standing here doing my head you know like if I could just get that filter to run a little faster up here for us maybe I can do this for us oh this is kind of fun okay I've got one we can discuss now you see where the red and yellow come back together technically this would be referred to as the broken dishes block or if you turn it on point in the project here it is considered an hourglass you kind of see that hourglass shape there now to get a pinwheel I think I was gonna have to have all of the same colors I don't know can I cheat it come at cheetah's a pinwheel I can okay there we go this is what I was talking about our fabrics would have nested together this is that pinwheel shape and what's funny about the pinwheel the other side becomes the broken dish block but it's also a really good idea for us all I think to spend time in our sewing room is just goofing around playing because the amount of entertainment we can have just doing stuff I can see how quickly and how fun the half square triangle can be such a versatile little unit or a little block and the way you use them and the way you make them is often dependent on the pattern you're following let's spend a few more minutes on the educational department let's get our knowledge back and go over here and talk a little bit more about the squares and the again what kind of happens so speaking first from the one we made by taking a square drawing a line stitching a quarter inch on either side and then cutting it open when I cut it open if you're just tuning into the video I did show this a moment ago this here is the way that with two fabrics together I would slice that and get these wonderful units and the benefit of this is is doing it this way is I know the math of it if I want a five-inch finished square in the quilt we're talking finished we know as quilters we're add one-half of an inch of meaning finished at five cut it at five and a half we call raw because we're doing quarter-inch seam allowances on the sewing machine so what you're taking us and quarter on this side a quarter on that side quarter quarter now we're down right five if we wanted to make a five inch finished in the quilt half square triangle we know we add seven eighths to our cut size so this cut size would have been five and seven eighths and then when I did it I would have gotten two of those half square triangles like I just showed you the advantage I showed you when I was playing with this quick ones when I went around all four sides super awesome very efficient the disadvantage is you don't know the size you're going to end up with unless you've done them before and have kept track however you get the same size for all of them so if you're making a pattern that is just half square triangles then there's no loss necessarily if you're half square triangles are slightly smaller than the pattern calls for your quilt will be slightly smaller if they're slightly larger this is where I want you to pay attention your quote will get slightly larger and therefore you may need more fabric from your local quilt shops and so well if you're gonna follow a design that somebody's put together for you and you're gonna make your own method of half square triangles please just buy a hundred extra yards of fabric so you've got plenty to work with and I think that's really good advice right like if you just always buy a hundred yards of fabric every week then you'll have plenty and your house will be warm and those who have the most stash at the end wins all of those stories are all true I think I don't know I'm goofing off and I love it that you're goofing off with me does you know when I'm not live on the camera I am totally rockin out while I'm trying to get these videos ready for you so that you'll continue coming back here and making it fun Oh nailed it exit except for a like maybe walked out of the camera or something I just keep going [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Making It Fun with Rob Appell

Views: 65,503

Rating: 4.8958874 out of 5

Keywords: Rob Appell, Michael Miller Fabrics, Half Square Triangles, Easy Quilts, Quilt Block, Make a quilt, Tutorial

Id: SS2FSZcQfDU

Length: 17min 2sec (1022 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 04 2019