What I have been up to this week - Pink and Gray Herringbone Baby Quilt: my favorite method for Half Square Triangles

Oh this week I have gotten tired of working on Christmas things - even though Christmas is not here yet.  So I looked through my stash and found this lovely pink and white collection of fat quarters.  There was also yardage is a lovely gray.  What could be better together? Wouldn't these look lovely in a herringbone baby quilt?

The tedium of squaring up blocks really bothers me.  There are many tutorials out there on multiple ways to make half square triangles (HST).  Since I am frugal, I prefer to find free or inexpensive ways to do things but after many different ways of a making half square triangle, my favorite involves the Quilt in a Day 9.5 inch Triangle Square Up Ruler.  It is worth the money!  

Wanting 4.5 inch squares that would finish up at 4 inches, I simply laid the ruler along my cutting mat so see how wide I needed the strips to be. I would be using the seam line as my measuring guide, so I used the 5" line, knowing I would be taking off 1/2 inch when 1/4 seams were added.  So I cut 3.5 inch strips of fabric.  I sewed a gray strip ON BOTH SIDES of each of the pink and white prints.

  Then using the ruler, I cut out the half square triangles.  Because I use the seam as my measuring point, the HST are squared up as soon as they are cut!  Yippee!

 As you see in this last photo every now and then one will be slightly off.  Just trim both sides and you are back on track.  Once the HST are cut, you will need to remove the 3-5 stitches at one end.  Just cut through one or two with the seam ripper on one side, then the other side pretty much pulls out.

 This can also be done without the Quilt in a Day Ruler.  

The diagonal line from a regular ruler is placed on the SEAM LINE, resulting in a 4.5 inch HST.  I know this works, but I still get nervous about the math and use the Quilt in a Day ruler.