Hello! I am wanting to make a Churn Dash quilt and I found a fabulous tutorial by Tippy located here:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-73577-1.htm
My question is: the fabric I want to fussy cut for the center will need to measure 5 inches..so what size do I need to cut my squares for the corner pieces that end up as the triangles? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much!

Everyone has their own way of doing HST's. I like doing them the same as in that tutorial, except I like to make them oversized, and then trim them down to the exact unfinished size.

So if you're CUTTING a 5" square from the focus fabric for the center square, you should cut squares for the corners at least 6" . Or larger.

The exact way of measuring is to take the unfinished size of the HST block - in this case 5" - and add the .5" diagonal seam allowance plus 3/8" for the weirdness of the angle. So the exact measurement for the square would be 5 7/8", but who wants to deal with that.

I love the Churn Dash block. So classic. I've had a quilt in the works for years - Amish Aliens on Acid. I named it right away but it's nowhere near done. :roll:

Thank you so much! This is the info I was needing. I kept thinking about it and wasn't coming up with the right sounding numbers! With a name like "Amish Aliens on Acid" its gotta be a super cool quilt! You'll have to post photos!! Thanks again for your help. I think I will spend tomorrow cutting it up my fabric :) WOO HOO!!

I cut squares about 1 inch larger than center square, sew together to make a half square trianlge block. Than trim it to unfinished size of center.
Hope this helped & didn't confuse you.
:-)

Hey, I typed it wrong. I just corrected it. You should cut the squares at least 6".

The exact method math should be 5"+.5"+3/8" to get to a 5 7/8" square.

Sorry for the typo.