squaring up half square triangles with a square die



I'm running a little late today thanks to some internet issues, but I'm finally here and I have a great little tip to share with you that I got from my friend Laura. She's a clever girl!



Instead of using the half square triangles die to rely on precise half square triangle units, you can square up your blocks with a square die.



In this block (the scrappy bear paw) I'm using a mixture of 3.5" squares and 3.5" half square triangle units. I made my HST units using a 4.5" square cut in half along the diagonal, and then used my 3.5" square die to trim them up to perfectly match the 3.5" squares in my block.



Draw a line on your square die diagonally, from one corner to the opposite corner of the square. Line up your stitched line with the marking



Run through the big shot....




...and you get a perfectly trimmed half square triangle unit!


There's a teensy bit of waste, of course - just as you would get if you were trimming the half square triangles up normally with a rotary cutter and ruler. I do my units one at a time, it doesn't take long and it's really precise!



I hope you can find a use for this little cheats tip!!!!