Half-Square Triangle Exchange

Do You like Half-Square Triangles? I LOVE Half-Square Triangles, there are so many things you can do with them. I started my obsession with HSTs about 20 years ago when a friend was discarding the ‘ears’ she had cut off from the corners of some Melon Patch blocks. “Don’t toss them”, I said, “I can use them” – and so it began. That first project which is still ongoing, involves HSTs that are painstakingly pieced the old fashioned way – along the bias edge and the resulting half-square triangle trimmed and squared to 1 5/8″. Why that bizarre size? Because it was the largest size unit I could get out of those pieces. Would I do this again – NO WAY!

That being said, I’ve made too many of these blocks to quit now, I’m going to make enough of these to do something really spectacular and from then on go for more regular sizes; this is what I’m making with my ditzy little half-square triangles:

My ‘ditzy’ half-square triangle project, you can see from the cutting mat that the basic ‘raw’ block measures slightly less than four square inches

I also like ‘Scrappy’, I’ve never met a scrap I didn’t like (OK I do toss some of them) but I love the challenge of what I can do with what most people would throw away, consider me a born recycler.

Now, onto my latest news, I am participating in a Half-Square Triangle exchange with Steve Lennert (formerly of One World Fabrics and a member of my small quilt group). He has launched an online Half-Square Triangle exchange and it might not be too late for you to get on board if you are interested in this exchange. Don’t worry – no weird sizes here, he has thorough instructions to use Triangles on a Roll™ or pre-printed cheater triangle templates to guarantee that all the half-square triangles are consistent in size and accuracy and ‘finish’ at 2″. Visit his blog for more details and to contact him to participate.


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