I sure did find myself learning alot (ALOT) about careful cutting, sewing, and pressing doing the half sq triangles on this block! By the time I finished my 8th block, they measured correctly! ha

Thank God for floating borders to assist with all those 1/8" 'problems.'

Maggie is right! We really want stable edges when dealing with all these little blocks!

On most half square triangle, the bias in on the hypotenuse (okay, I loved geometry ), the long seam that connects the two triangles. That is why people come up different ways to construct them to deal with that bias. With the method just described, your bias will be on your sides.......this is really not good, as your square can stretch and get wonky. Now, if this is the look you wish, it is probably a good technique.

Maggie in E. Central Illinois

It took me a while to figure out the size but if I started with 2 squares that were 2 1/2 inches it worked out.

Not sure about the bias edges, I think they may be a problem for most 1/2 square triangles.

denise

This sounds good, but wouldn't the bias be along the wrong edges? I haven't tried it.

The only problem I see with this technique is the FUNKY sizes that you get... I have been trying to make blocks using the same technique with different size starting blocks.

The resulting half square triangles resulted from this cut method were unusual size.

i.e. 3 inch starting blocks resulted in 1-3/4 inch half sq triangles. I do not know of any patterns using these size squares. I suppose you could square them up to smaller usuable sizes ie ... 1-1/2 inch.

I certainly think more experimentation is required ... Maybe I need to think out of the box more...

Finding away to use this technique should be fun.

Well today I was looking through some emails and found one that caught my eye. It was from the Applewood BOM, although I'm not doing that one, I was reading how their coming along. One poster said how there were many different ways to do 1/2 square triangles so that caught my eye. She did them a bit different (for me). She took 2 squares (2 1/2 inches) for us one print and one background - same size for both. Right sides together and sews a 1/4 in seam around the edges of the blocks. Then she cuts them in half diagonally (making an x) and poof, she has four 1/2 square triangles done and no paper to remove!

Of course I saw this at work and was so intrigued I had to try it with paper, staples and tape and it pretty much worked. So I came home, used my rotary cutter and some scraps - and it worked great.

Both squares have to be 2.5 inches, and you have to do a 1/4 inch seam around the perimeter of the square on all 4 sides, cut in an X and your done!

Give it a try.

denise