thanks everyone!

GREAT !!!

Rhonda..thank you so very much for this tutorial...It was Very helpful...hugs Swimer Girl

I'm glad it helps!!

All I can say is ingenious!! Thatnks for the short cut and tip!!

Wow!!!! Thanks.

Am I missing something ?? If you cut the original half-square triangle unit out of the strip---don't you then have all of
the sides of the square on the bias ? Awfully hard to sew
accurately to anything else, especially for beginners because they stretch/ what you have after further cutting & sewing is an hourglass, not a four-patch. four-patch is 4 squares of different colors or pairs of colors.

Ok the largest HST I usually use is 1 1/2" so I don't pay any attention to bias or grain. But I am going to try a larger block and see.

So someone tell me what problems do you run into with bias. If I understand it right it makes the fabric stretch right?

I'll try a 4" square and see what happens. I learn by trial and error and if this is affecting the HSTs then I need to be aware of this for those who do make quilts. When I use the small HSTs I have never had any problem. So I am assuming that the larger blocks will need some thought.

yes, bias is stretchy. not too bad if you sew two pieces or HSTs & one of them is on the straight grain. but if you end
up sewing two bias edges together, you can have problems,
especially if you don't pin ends. that's why you cut your outside setting triangles from a large square into quarter-square triangles. then you have the straight-grain edges on
the outside of your quilt. Cutting HSTs with the shown method
works really accurately if you first use bias strips, then cut them with a square-up ruler. method is called bias-square.
I'll check to see if there is a tutorial somewhere.

Lady, you're marvelous!!
Do you wanna be adopted?

Love this. I've loved the look of HSTs
but couldn't get too enthused about
making them. Always had to cut them
down after making them too large!!