There are a million ways to make half square triangles. Well, maybe not a million, but a lot. Many involve trimming as a final step. I hate trimming. It’s one reason I love my Accuquilt die cutter. But every now and again, I find myself in a situation where trimming is necessary. So this is how I do it.

These HSTs were made from a layer cake. I wanted to cut them down to 8 1/2 inches. So I pulled out this die.

This die has one 8 1/2 inch square, one 4 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch rectangle, and three 4 1/2 inch squares all on the same die board.  You can see a quilt I made with the Take 5 pattern here. This is a great die for so many things beyond the Take 5 pattern though. Today I used just the 8 1/2  inch square part of the die.

First, I used a silver Sharpie marker to make guidelines on my die like this.

See those diagonal lines? They go directly out from the corners of the square.

I just used a ruler and Sharpie to mark this. Next, I lay my HST block on top, lining up the seam line with the marks on the die.

You might want to use a finer Sharpie, but I wanted you to be able to see what I’m doing. Next I run it through my studio cutter.

Voila! A perfectly trimmed HST block! I only trim one block at a time for accuracy’s sake, but this beats squaring up with a rotary cutter and ruler any time! 

And any square die can be used for trimming HSTs this way.

I hope you found this little tutorial helpful. Accuquilt Studio dies and die cutters are on sale until October 9th. The dies are 40% off! You can find specific details here. 

Have a great day!

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