We just rolled our calendars over to another month, which means another set of instructions have been posted in the Foothills Mystery Quilt hosted by Cheryl @ Meadow Mist Designs. You can check out my previous history in the Mystery Quilt series in these posts:
This month, we are to make 144 Half Square Triangles (HSTs). That’s a lot! I thought I might spread the work out over a few days when I got started piecing, pressing, and trimming this morning, but I am happy to say it actually went much faster than I thought it would. Overall, I spent about 3.5 hours making these HSTs.
Foothills Mystery Quilt – 144 HSTs (3.5″ x 3.5″)
Each stack in the image above has 12 3.5″ by 3.5″ trimmed HSTs. Aren’t they pretty?
Foothills Mystery Quilt – HSTs
Each trimmed HST had 4 edges to square up. That means I made 576 cuts just to square the HSTs. I am glad I broke up the sewing, pressing, and cutting. I chain pieced one yellow fabric worth of blocks (24 HSTs worth), then I press set the seams, cut the HSTs apart (the instructions were to sew 2 HSTs at once from a square and then trim on the center diagonal), then I pressed the HSTs open, and finally I trimmed each set of 24 down to size. I did half in the morning and half in the afternoon.
Foothills Mystery Quilt – HSTs
And with all that trimming, I undercut one HST at 3″ wide instead of 3.5″. Oops. Thankfully I had precut lots of extra black background fabric and one extra yellow square for each yellow fabric. I was definitely getting tired at the end, because that is when I made the trimming mistake (with only 18 blocks left to trim). Another month done and I am looking forward to seeing what others in the group are creating!
I don’t think I’ve caught posts about this before, sounds really interesting, I’m looking forward to seeing how your mystery unfolds now!
ugh that is the worst part of HST, but they are so worth it! I have to go months between HST quilts, but always come back to them 🙂
You are so productive and your HSTs are so pretty! Love those soft yellows.
WOW! That was fast and they look fabulous! I agree, the most tedious part of HSTs is the trimming. Love your fabric choices, can’t wait to see this one come together.
Whew! That’s a stack of HSTs! Congrats on finishing them in one day. 🙂
I am catching up with this sew-a-long this weekend since I have been working on 1.75” HST!!! I am loving your color selection and I am interested to see how this quilt turns out, and especially with all the different colors everyone is using!
Your HST look really good. I have another 240 to make, but luckily they are 6.5 inches. (By the way, I love the inclusion of math facts. It is a lot of cuts.)
That’s the worst squaring them too small! Although with that many cuts and only one mistake, you did great. They all look pretty there together!
Your colors are so nice. You’ve reminded me that I have not yet trimmed my HST and didn’t prepare extras like you did. I had better break up the trimming fun so that I don’t make a mistake!
I love your HSTs, very nice colors! I made all of HST in one day and then took 8 days to trim them so I did not have to do so many in one day (my wrist starts to really get tired trimming too many at once).