Mystery Quilt Part # 2

   PART #2 

 The next step in our mystery quilt along it to turn all your squares into half square trinagles.

1. Take 2 squares, in this case one Warm and one Cool. (Light/Darks, Colored/Whites, Whatever you chose)  This is really important for creating the Warm/Cool pattern!

2. Place your squares right-sides-together.

3. Line up a ruler along the diagonal, from one corner to another.

4. Carefully trace a line with a pencil.

5. Using a scant 1/4" seam allowance, sew along one side of the pencil line. I recommend either using a 1/4" foot, or move your needle over so that it is 1/4" away from the edge of your presser foot. This way you can simply line up your presser foot with the pencil line! Backstitch at each end.

6. Turn your square and sew down the other side of the pencil line.

7. Using scissors, cut down the pencil line, splitting the square in half.

8. Press your seams. I prefer to press my seams open. I think that it allows the block to lay flatter. For more information on seam pressing check out this tutorial from Sew, Mama, Sew. You can also find an interesting discussion on pressing seams open here.

Now we need to trim our HSTs. For the Mini size, trim your HSTs down to 3". For the Baby and Twin size, trim your HSTs down to 4.5".

9. Place your ruler over your HST with the corner on the diagonal seam. Line up the diagonal line on the ruler with the seam. Carefully trim as little as necessary on both sides.

Woo hoo! You're done! You now have two Half-Square Triangles! 

Continue to make HSTs with the remaining squares, making sure to match up one Warm square with one Cool square. Do so somewhat randomly, just making sure that you have some variety in your match-ups!

Note: If you want to make different sized half-square triangles (for other projects!), simply add 1" to the size you want your finish HST to be to get your starting square size. Then trim to your unfinished size. For example, if you want a finished HST size of 2", cut two 3" squares and trim to 2.5" :)