How to make Half Square Triangles - fast, easy and accurately!

hi I'm Carla this is quilting with Carla today I'm going to teach you how to make half square triangles using the shortcut sheet techniques shortcut sheets are going to release and Houston on October 23rd we're very excited about that it's five different five there may be six we'll wait and see but each sheet gives you directions on how to make a lot of something in this case a square triangles using a sheet method where you're showing the strip's together and then slicing them apart and maybe sewing them again and maybe slicing them apart every technique is a little bit different all you need is a quilting ruler and a rotary cutter for each of these techniques so let's get started the cutting for some of the color combinations we've done the ones for here I've done the other like one which is these two colors and I've already some one which I'll show you in a minute and this is the light background which is going to go with this particular color this pattern is for two-inch finish size two and a half inch unfinished size half square triangles they're pretty small the strip width we need to cut to make them it's two and a quarter inches I cut my fabric using nothing and in fact the hope the whole technique is nothing but a ruler a rotary cutter and a big mat I took my fabric underneath my ruler and I cut that way so what you're looking at is a yard of fabric it's been folded it's been trimmed so there's no folds left so now I have four layers and I'm cutting the width of fabric get my for my two and a quarter inch strips and I like to use the ruler to measure it's way more precise the mat different mats are obviously made a little differently but I've had matze that actually have stretched with time and so no longer were accurate so I always cut with my ruler nice sharp rotary blade I used the lines on my ruler and slice the bag work that way it's hard for me to see when I've made a cup so I like to remove my little set and then put my ruler down again there's four layers I'm going to make seven cuts that gives me 28 pieces I've done that with each of the other fabrics is ready already doesn't take very long to cut the fabric always press it in advance as well so there's no little crinkles that get in the way with measuring it properly like to use boutiques when I use this method short cut sheets in all cases are one of them as they say their short cuts so in order to do that you have to sometimes compromise on some of your other quilting standards one of them being used to bias a lot of my little blocks end up being on the bias I don't have any problems with that I'm careful how I handle it I use boutiques which have a little less stretch and hasn't been an issue and again it's a short cut sheet you'll see and judge for yourself the benefits so these two cup are going to go together that's all my cutting done for this pattern then I've taken the strip's so I'm going to sewn them up alternately press my seams open I'm going to show you a little tool I like depressed with call the strip stick comes in different lengths comes full with the fabric because I'm cutting and sewing only half with the fabric I can still use it over on my ironing board but what it does is that it raises up the seam that I'm pressing and because it's been raised up I'm not accidentally pressing something in the wrong direction that I've already flat so this is a very very handy little tool called a press stick sorry strip stick now I've sewn all my strips together for two color combinations so you can see is very very very long I'm going to stretch the whole thing out because I've already folded it nicely to keep it out of my way but it's a very long strip there is no restriction to how long your strip can be it can be from here to China if you want what matters is that you've cut your quarter in two and a quarter inch you sewn the quarter inch seam you pressed it open and you have it nice and straight from that point on you just doesn't matter how long it is we're going to start cutting on the diagonal my first cut is going to be as close to the two and a half inch mark as I can that's because my blocks are going to be two and a half inches so I'm going to go with my ruler and a diagonal line for my first cut I can use the cutting mat as long as my seam is straight my seam is straight my 45 is here on the cutting mat I'm going to move it over just a hair make sure my seam is still straight half there there my first cut then will just be I don't want to start in the wrong place because I could lose as much as one whole unit off the other end if I don't just take the minimum at this side from this point on on cutting using my ruler to measure and from time to time I'm checking to make sure that I'm still straight here is the line in my ruler you can see that carefully this is the line in my ruler that's my 45 I put it on the seam and I'm checking one of my other lines to make sure I'm still straight and then I'm backing it up and I'm doing my two and a half inch now I've got a couple more strips and then you'll see how we take them apart see if I'm still straight here's my line goes right on one of my scenes my bottom edge of my ruler still straight on the fabric edge I can keep going with a couple more two and a half inch now you can see my ruler is not going to be long enough I'll show you how we deal with that as well two and a half inches oops that's one and a half that would not be a good idea two and a half yeah I'm getting to the point where my rulers no longer wide enough here's how we deal with that I start at one end line up by two and a half start my cut hold the blade down slide the ruler forward make sure you still have a two and a half you can take the cut I'll cut one more piece so you can see how it's done we just check to make sure it's still straight now it's off just a tiny bit and I'm going to adjust for that sure my fabrics flat there's my seam like I should have this draped off the end of my table I have it folded because of the camera one more time before I make the correction that in the core I'm off a bit I'm going to fix that click them off about a quarter-inch doing that in the right direction one too big here by about a quarter inch so I'm fine at that end I'm a quarter inch off here once you slide my ruler down make sure I'm still on cut make one more cut so you can see it two and a half inches you can run a piece of masking tape along your line if you're doing a lot of cuts sometimes easier the ruler slide the ruler up hold the rotary cutter in and continue to cut now I hear you're wondering probably how does that make a house for a triangle well let me show you you can use the big ruler at this point doesn't matter I sometimes switch to a smaller one what you're cutting are these points the bottom to the opposite one on the top just line them up and cut the first piece I'm going to just put it on your ruler at two and a half and then keep going point to point that's how fast it is to make a square triangles point-to-point look at the back of them is sometimes a little egg just slice those off do that as I'm going if I don't some time to get in the way my scene when I'm showing my pieces together I just make a point to take them off right now now what's going to happen as you can end up with a whole pile of these the same as I said you can sew as many pieces together if you want here's how they measure up two and a half into an ass a little bit pretty good when I start to put my pattern together I've got my diagonals absolutely perfect when I do my right sides together I know I'm going to take my quarter inch seam and it'll be 100% dead-on which is of course what we want when we join them up together so thank you for joining this quilting with Carla these are the half square triangles made in the short cut sheet method and check back to our website that pattern will be available very soon it's kits by Carla com

Channel: Kits by Carla

Views: 384,355

Rating: 4.744832 out of 5

Keywords: HST, Half square triangle, quilting, Shortcut sheet, kits by carla, missouri star

Id: A91W0tUTFyg

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2015