Friday, June 20, 2014

HST Trimming Trick

Click here for the giveaway which ends Monday June 23rd..

I learned a new-to-me shortcut for squaring up half square triangle units. I tried it out last week and was impressed with the results. It was much faster than the way I usually do it (like taking about half as much time) and was just as accurate after a little trial and error for how I need to line things up.

The tutorial I followed is by Little Miss Shabby. She calls it the Epic HST Technique. Click on the link to go to the tutorial.

I found that using a square ruler and my rotating cutting mat worked best for me.


The disadvantage of using a square ruler is that unless it is the exact size you need to cut, you will still have to rotate your unit and make two cuts. Using a rectangular ruler with a drawn on line like she shows in the tutorial you can cut both sides without having to move the ruler or the unit. The advantage to using a square ruler, as opposed to a rectangular ruler, is that you can cut the dog-ears off as you cut the sides.


I was shocked at how quickly I had them all trimmed. Lining up four HST units at a time on my rotating mat also helped speed things up.


I had everything trimmed and pressed in time to play around with them. Below are my three favorite layouts I tried.




The photos only show four blocks. I have enough HST made up to do 12 blocks. I may make more though so I can have more blocks.


1 comment:

Barb said...

Thanks, I will definitely go over there...yours are fantastic!!