Half Rectangle Triangle Tutorial

It's been about four years since I made a Half Square Rectangle quilt.  One of the important things I forgot and that I didn't pick up on when I scanned a couple of other tutes about making them, is that you can't do everything exactly the same!

So, here's my tutorial, and if you read it thru, you'll see what I mean.

For my project, I started with 5" x 7" rectangles.  Then I matched them up into pairs.

Place each pair right sides together, and draw a diagonal line on each pair.  If you want all you pairs to be identical, draw all the lines the same.  If you want to be able to form a diamond with your HSR's, draw some top left to lower right, and some top right to lower left.  (This is the part I forgot!)

Now rotate the marked rectangle a quarter turn, so they look like the photo  above.  Take them to your sewing machine and stitch a scant 1/4" seam on each side of the drawn line.

Cut along the drawn line.  Take them to your ironing board and press the seams open.  Go back to your cutting board and true them up to 4.5" x 6.5".

I haven't stitched these together, but you can see how you can turn them to get different looks.

This is my "cheat-sheet".  If I want to make diamonds I need to do half one way and half the other. 

May your bobbins always be full,