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By cutting first and than stitching, you will be working on the bias which could cause stretching issues. Easy to distort.

It really boils down to what works best for YOU. Of course you can cut the diagonal and chain stitch. I do this all the time with my leaders and enders. I do scrap pieces all the time this way as well but what I do is trim down my HST after it is sewn to make sure it is nice and squared up. As you already have your squares cut you probably don't have much wiggle room for squaring up unless your pattern had you cut the squares oversize. A way to tell is if there are instructions to square them up after sewing or if the squares were a 7/8" measurement.

There are so many ways to make HST, from triangulations to grids like Jan posted and the way your instructions say. However I would definitely eliminate drawing two lines and only draw one (or you can fold your square in half on the diagonal to put a crease in it) and sew 1/4" on each side of the crease or drawn line. In my mind it is a waste of time to draw two lines and sew on the lines. That is why we have 1/4" feet!

Edited to add, Quilting is not a race. Sure there are techniques to streamline the process but sometimes the better results are achieved my slowing down and taking your time. I would try it the way your pattern indicates and try it the way you want and then measure your finished HST to see which method gives you the more accurate result and do it that way, even if the more accurate way is more steps and takes longer. In the long run you will be much happier with the rest of the process of making the quilt and the final results.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MeadowMist (Post 7465580)

I'm making a scrappy quilt with 1280 half square triangles. I have all my squares cut, now my next step is to take that little ruler (there's a name for it but I don't know what it is) and put it down the diagonal of each square, then draw a line on each side of the ruler, then stitch on each line and then cut the square down the diagonal.

Question for you - it would be much faster if I could cut down the diagonal first and then chain piece a quarter of an inch from that cut edges on each of the pieces. The end result would be the same, wouldn't it? Any reason why I shouldn't do this?

I'm cutting each square a little bigger than it needs to be so after all of the above I still have to take each of the 1280 hsq's and cut them to size. This is turning out to be quite a project and I'm hoping to save a step here. Seems that step of drawing the line is kind of "extra" but I still new at this so maybe I'm missing something.

I believe you can chain piece without cutting on the diagonal first. Just sew 1/4" away from the penciled diagonal. Keep chain piecing 1/4" from the diagonal line until you get through all the squares. Then turn them and chain piece 1/4" away from the other side.

I have made HSTs every way possible. I use my Go now but if I don't have the size die I need I use the Fast 2 Mark ruler and make eight HSTs at a time. No bias edges.

I still chain piece those squares before I cut them into two sections. I sew down one side on all of them, then start from the last one and sew down the other side, then split them afterward. Easy-peasy. Saves a lot of thread when you strip piece plus no chance of having your long tails end up on the top of the quilt top in the end.

I bought that marking ruler to mark each side of the sew line and found that it created an oversized mark. The ruler did not work for me at all. In the end I marked the center line and used the 1/4" foot to sew along that marked line. That worked but I had to trim all of my HSTs - a lot of extra cutting.

Recently I bought the easy angle (and companion angle) ruler and it works like a charm. NO MORE TRIMMING. I love it.

Go easy and do as Jenny Doan does, iron squares on diagonal and use iron mark to sew, easy peasy and no marking. Cutting into triangle first your sewing on bias and could have distorted HST's or have to pin and that is a pain.
I made a bunch of HST's and chain pieced down one side and after a bunch were sewn, picked up first one and started down other side. Then cut them apart and separated them, fast and easy.

If the HSTs are fairly small, see if this would work for you. I have the green tape aligned with the needle (not needed for this) and the red one at the 1/4" mark.
This way there is no need to draw the diagonal on the fabric. Line up corner to corner on the red at the "bottom" end and with the outside of the 1/4" foot at the top. Go ahead and sew, turn it around, line up again and sew, then just cut through the center. ( I do realize that this may not work for all machine set-ups, but lucky me!)

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Cutting the squares on the diagonal first will leave you with bias edges, not a good idea. If you hadn't already cut all the squares, I would suggest looking at a tutorial by Jenny Doan, MSQC to see her fast HST's. Instead of drawing a diagonal line, she folds the square along the diagonal and then presses as she says it saves her time. Just a thought.

If you are careful in your cutting and stitching the method you are wanting to use works quite well. I personally prefer doing it that way - for the very reasons you mentioned. I've never had serious issues with distortion except if I end up having to rip out and restitch for whatever reason. Just making the HSTs as you describe works very well for me.