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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Handy dandy! Thx for the tutorial!
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I never thought of using my Acququilt dies to trim blocks… Thanks for the tip!
Very cool, and seems time saving, too.
Love your idea!
Brilliant!!! Trimming HST is my least favorite thing to do so this will come in VERY handy 🙂
Oh thanks so much! Have had idea to try this, thanks for showing the details. The Studio is such a help with my arthritic hands!
Great use of the die!