3 Ways to Make 1/2 Square Triangles

[Music] the half-square triangle is a great little unit in patchwork piecing and I want to show you a few ways to make half square triangles maybe take a little little bit of the fear out of it first I'm going to show you how to make one half square triangle so I am making four inch half square triangles today but there is a little bit of a formula that I want to talk about so when we are making a half square triangle if I want to make 1/4 inch 1/2 square triangle I'm going to cut out 4 inch squares and I am going to mark my so line right down the center of that square so when we're making half square triangles we're going to be talking about a marking line and a sew line so our marking line to make 1/2 square triangle is right down the center so you're going to cut the size square that you want that half square triangle to be and then I've already done the sewing so right sides together we're going to sew right on top of our marking line so to make 1/2 square triangle the mark line and the sew line are the same and then I'm going to use a ruler just to give myself a nice little quarter inch I'm going to go to either side of that so line a quarter of an inch and cut off the excess so now I've got 1/2 score triangle these are always nice to save when you're going to make some smaller half square triangles next we are going to sew two half square triangles so your formula for making two half square triangles is we are going to go by the cut size so in quilting a lot of times we talk about the cut size and then we talk about the finished size so I'm going with the cut sighs to make a four-inch half square triangle to make two four-inch half square triangles we are going to measure four inches plus two seam allowances which is a half an inch our seam allowance is going to be a quarter of an inch so when I measure the squares to cut out I'm measuring the cut size that I want four inches plus a quarter inch plus a quarter of an inch so my squares are going to be cutted I'm going to be cut four and a half inches so again right sides together now our marking line is going to be a little bit different to make two half square triangles we are going to be marking on either side of the center so I'm going to at the purple pen I'm going to just mark that Center so you can see what I'm talking about that's the center and then let me just mark it again this is in pencil but I'm going to mark it again so you can see then I'm going to mark a quarter of an inch on either side of that center line so what we are doing is sewing a quarter of an inch away from that center line so this is what it's going to look like here is that Center of the two squares and you see how we are sewing a quarter of an inch away from the center then we're going to cut it right down the middle and that's going to give us two half square triangles now the next one I think is my favorite because a lot of patchwork blocks call for eight half square triangles of the same color for instance what if you are doing a star pattern a lot of different star patterns will call for eight half square triangles and I want to show you a couple of different ways to actually most mark your lines the first way is when we make eight half square triangles this is going to be the same as when we saw when we did two half square triangles where we are going to sew a quarter of an inch away from our center line and so if we mark that center line then we're going to sew a quarter of an inch away but I want to show you a little a little tool which you actually don't have to use this tool but I'll show you this is a little tool that shows that centre line to see how that is in black down the center of this little ruler and then it's a quarter of an inch wide on either side of that center line so I can lay this ruler on my square lining up that black line down the center and then what I'm doing is I'm marking my so lines instead of marking a center line and then sewing a quarter of an inch away the advantage of marking your sole line is that if two or three of us got together and said we're gonna sew a quarter of an inch away from our mark line we're probably going to have three different seam allowances so I like marking my so line now if you don't have a little ruler like this you can take any ruler and line up a quarter inch along the center do you see how I've got a quarter of an edge hanging right over that center line so then I can easily just mark that quarter inch away so then this is what it's going to look like when it's sewn so you don't see that my Center through the through the fabric where but you can see that I've sewn a quarter of an inch away from that now after you sew your seams pretty much on any size of half square triangles you see how I've got a little bit of puckering in here the fabric is going to just move a little bit sometimes your stitch might be a little bit tight so especially on this bigger size it's always a good idea to bring it over to the iron and to give this a nice little pressing before we do any cutting that's so nice because that just works all those little all the little puckering right out of that I'm doing on both sides for good measure just because we can and so now it's time to cut so when you're cutting for eight the easiest that we are going to be cutting this kind of like a pie and so I'm going to cut through the part of my squares that is not marked right that's going to be the easiest place to cut through I I like to say that you're going to be cutting plus mark and then an X so we're going to cut through this way and you see we line that ruler right where these seams are Criss crossing and then we're going to go this way and we're going to cut across here now we're going to cut right down the center so if for some reason this moves around don't worry you can cut each of these separately if you want to when you're cutting with the rotary cutter you want to really stabilize that ruler we're gonna cut through and now you've got up ate half square triangles isn't that awesome so now let's talk a little bit about pressing our half square triangles so on this block you can see that we definitely have a nice contrast with light and dark if you lay your half square triangle on your ironing board with the dark fabric up then you know you're always going to be pressing towards that dark side one little trick that I like to do is I like to lay them not right on top of each other but I like to stagger my half square triangles let me do a little reach I like to just stagger them so the reason that I want to press that seam allowance to the dark side is so it's not showing up on my lighter fabric and the when I press my half square triangles and stagger them like this I don't think you can ever press a half square triangle too much so now they're all nice and pressed this is a nice and flat most of the time in a perfect world when we cut up our half square triangles they're going to end up the perfect size but they usually don't so I'm going to use ruler that has I'm gonna hold that still so it has a line in that ruler that is a 45 degree angle and the reason that that is nice is that we're going to take our half square triangle we're going to lay this over the ruler now remember I wanted a 4-inch half square triangle so I'm going to line the seam of my half square triangle right along that 45-degree angle that is marked on the ruler and then here you can see that I've just counted over four inches so I've got the inside of this half square triangle lined up on that four inch line again secure that route that ruler nicely we're gonna cut this way and like was really close and we're going to cut that way we'll cut off that little dog ear that's that little leftover piece and now we've got a nice squared up half square triangle and you are ready for your patchwork piecing [Music]

Channel: Riley Blake Designs

Views: 48,333

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Id: zjPQaQqrXnw

Length: 10min 52sec (652 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2019