GrandmaK, of course you can make them the square way. I'd still cut the two squares 1" larger than you need, sew on each side of the drawn line, cut apart, press, then square up. They are so much more accurate this way -- being squared up afterwards -- and thus are easier to piece together into the blocks. (Yep, it's a lot of squaring up. Just pick a day and do as many as you can. I once had a project with 464 HSTs that took me a week to square up, but that project then went together in a snap afterwards; I was glad I did the "extra" work!)
Of course there is an even easier way to make a series of HSTs all at one time rather than by the individual squares method. I'll try to get it drawn out for you in a bit.
Jan in VA