Great thoughts, thanks all.
I recently saw a Jenny Doan video where she made 4 HSTs by putting two squares wrong sides together and stitching around the perimeter, then cutting apart on the diagonals, making 4 no-waste HSTs. It is super easy.
All I meant by "modern" is that I'm not wedded to traditional techniques:-).
I was at a quilt show and really enjoyed looking closely to figure out the construction. I do always look at the finished quilt when folowing a pattern to understand the construction- often the instructions call for more cutting of small pieces when a shortcut could work.