- 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, if you do please give it a thumbs up. Make sure you subscribe, click that bell beside the subscribe button so you'll know when my next video comes up. You can also find me at Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest,
at Just Get It Done Quilts. So take care and I'll see you next time.
