Tutorial: How to make Half Square Triangles for quilting

Hello!

Just posting a photo heavy tutorial as I'm currently making a patchwork gift basket for Christmas and it's very heavy on Half Square Triangles (HSTs). They are very commonly used in quilting, so once you've learnt to make some, you can do a lot of quilts!

To start with, chose the two fabrics you want and cut them to the size you need. Your instructions will tell you what size usually. If you're going your own way and making a quilt from scratch without a pattern then you can use online HST reference/cheat sheets or do the maths yourself to end up with the correct size.

**Pro tip! Spray starch your fabrics at this point. HSTs are cut and sewn on the bias which can make fabric stretch. To limit this, spray starch and iron them. The fabric will become much more rigid, easier to handle and less likely to stretch out of place, so you'll be more accurate and get a neater finish. The starch just washes out when you wash the item at the end.

If you're working with small pieces, you could draw them all out on one piece of fabric first, then spray starch the entire thing to make cutting easier too. Ironing lots of really small bits gets tiresome...

Turn the fabrics over, and draw a line going diagonally across the back. The back of your fabric is usually much paler (compare to the photo above). Sometimes fabrics are not that different from one side to the other. Have a good look and pick a side anyway. To make it easier on yourself, make a small mark within the seam allowance so you'll always be able to orientate yourself.

Once you have your chosen fabrics. Layer the two together, with the right sides together. Make sure the lines go in the same direction on both sides (i.e both go upwards from left to right). Either pin or clip the two together.

I've used wonder clips this time as it tends to keep the fabric flatter and saves time. [I bought 50 off eBay for £3.65.] If you're using pins you can pin so the pin sticks outwards (perpendicular) rather than going along the edges (parallel) to keep it flat.

Put your fabric square under your presser foot and line up to the left of the diagonal line.

I'm using a quilting 1/4 inch seam allowance foot, so you can see it's a bit different to a standard foot. The guide on the right hand side is 1/4 inch away from the needle, so that the seam allowance will always be accurate when the fabric is lined up with the guide. This is designed to have the fabric's cut edge against the foot, but I find it helpful for HSTs too.

Sew 1/4 inch to the left of the diagonal line. I usually use my preset straight stitch width of 0 and stitch length of 2.2mm, with the needle in the normal central position.

***Pro tip! Quilting HSTs lend themselves well to batch sewing. Once you've sewn a square, raise the needle and presser foot and move the square a little further from the needle to give yourself a small tail. Don't cut the threads. Just put the next square down, and sew that one. Repeat for each square.

These squares are all attached to each other still.

Now we need to turn them around and stitch along the diagonal line again - this time on the side you haven't yet sewn. When we're done, there will be two lines of stitching (1/2 inch apart) with your line drawn in between.

[Yep, I didn't check the lines were in the same direction on the top square. You can see the lines are quartering the square into 4 triangles instead of two. The fabric was dark enough the line didn't show through, otherwise I would have had to unpick.]

Once all of your squares have been sewn diagonally for the second time, it's time to cut them. Place them on a cutting mat, use a quilting ruler to line up with the line you have drawn and cut. Always push a rotary cutter away from you and put the safety back on each time you put the cutter down.

***Pro tip! If you use a 28 mm blade, you can cut sitting down. The larger 45 mm blades are much bigger and will require standing up in order to safely apply enough pressure to cut through the layers.

If you use scissors instead, use the longest blades possible and use the full length of the blades when possible. This will cut more fabric, reducing jagged edges from moving the scissors along the line. I won't lecture on using fabric scissors only on fabric.... :D

Cut out all of your squares in a batch. Or if you're short on time then do some in small groups when you can. Once you're all done, then it's time for pressing.

Open up the fabrics, to reveal your square made of two triangles! Half square triangles...

The way you fold open the triangles will make a big difference. Always fold to the dark side - remember Star Wars! On this example, you can see in the above photo that the seam allowance is folded to the right (the lighter fabric).

The seam allowance will almost always show up under the light fabric (which is more visible against light).

By folding the seam allowance to the dark side instead...

[Apologies for not keeping the square the same way around as in the above photo!]

Then the seam allowance is a lot less visible and will give a much neater result.

***Pro tip! Spray starched fabrics can usually be 'finger folded' quite easily. By folding the seam allowance over and pressing with your fingers, this can sometimes be enough and eliminate needing to iron the squares. However pressing is the best option.

Once all your seam allowances are folded to the dark side, give the squares a press under an iron. Another batch process! Check first on scrap fabric to make sure the temperature is suitable. If you fabric contains polyester, it will almost always shrink if the iron gets too hot for it. Experiment!

***Pro tip! If you're struggling with having two light or similar coloured fabrics, try it both ways and see which once you prefer.

Now it's time to true up your squares! You need a quilting ruler for this part.

Place your square back on your cutting mat. Quilting rulers will always have 30, 45 and 60 degree lines printed on them. We need to use the 45 degree line, as our HSTs are sewn along the 45 degree diagonal line.

Line up the 45 degree line with the seam between the two fabrics. Cut them down to the size stated in your pattern. This will make the edges nice and neat again (which really helps with overall finish).

To get the most accurate results, ensure your ruler is exactly on the edge of the fabric rather than 1mm in. I learnt the hard way that those 1mm's are enough to throw the entire thing off and stop your points from matching up by the time you finish your quilt!

I bought this clever 4-in-1 quilting board, from Hobbycraft. The grey left hand side is sandpaper, which fabrics stick to and is useful for drawing lines. The black side is a slightly stickier fabric which you can stick your fabric pieces to once cut out. Once flipped over, there is a cutting mat built so that you can cut directly onto the board.

To finish off, you can close or fully open out the board and lie it flat to press on!

Have fun with the HSTs, hope this made sense.

Butterick B5748 Wedding reception dress

Hello!

This dress has a bit of back story. Good friends of ours were getting married in September and I'd been meaning to make my dress to wear. I also saw Craftypinup's beautiful dress last summer on Instagram, thought it was beautiful and exactly like what I wanted to buy or make so immediately bought the same fabric and pattern! I then sat on it for over a year without doing anything as I had plenty of time...

I'm getting more and more turned off buying clothes on the high street, especially the higher end shops that I would have shopped in to buy a lovely occasion dress. Sometimes the sewing isn't quite up to scratch, but more often than not it just won't fit properly. I'm a classic pear, who prefers short waist fits so that skirts skim over my hips even though I'm 'normal waisted', I have rounded shoulders and my clothes frequently gape across my high bust and neckline. That's a lot of adjustments that RTW shops wouldn't cater for. I have found a few shops that I know I can buy a certain size and the fit will be close enough I won't need to get it tailored, but when it's not quite right it really bugs me now. One of the pitfalls of learning to sew clothes!

 I worked a lot on this dress to get the fit right, and it's the best I've ever done to date. Woohoo! I did a lot of reading online, I read Fit for Real People (which I found confusing but also useful - I just wish it explained things at a slightly more basic level to make it easier to get into as a beginner). From reading other blogs, looking at their fitting photos and looking at my RTW clothes and how they sit I was pretty sure I have forward shoulders. I'm not sure if I have a rounded back or not, but the two adjustments seem to go together so I'm going to just assume I have for now. I don't have a 'dowager's hump' but have spotted that on others since - I'm definitely slowly assimilating it all in and learning!

The fabric I used was a gorgeous jardin stretch cotton sateen and I don't have any other stretch cottons. Instead, I bought an extra metre of it and toiled from that. Due to my putting it off all year, I think I was really lucky to get the extra metre as it's since sold out and is non re-orderable. I spent 3-4 weeks on this part - mainly because I kept getting discouraged from making an adjustment, trying it on, making changes, then unpicking it all again to redo. Apart from that, the fabric behaved beautifully. It responded to pressing really well, sewed easily and was nice to handle and cut out. It's one of the more expensive fabrics I have used to date, so that was a relief! I thought about attempting to pattern match but the print is so big I didn't bother and wouldn't have had enough fabric.

I only toiled once properly (shown above), which was probably a mistake. I did a lot of changes from the original pattern. I did my usual grading from bust to hips, but this graded down on the shoulders one size too. The fit was massive initially, so I had to drop down one size across the entire dress so ended up with 6 at the shoulders and bust, 8 at waist and 10 at hips. I increased the size of the back bodice darts by 1/2 inch overall to try and reduce the sway back I seem to get. I lowered the bust darts (never done that before), made a forward shoulder adjustment by taking length from the front shoulder and adding it to the back piece (had never done this before either). However the shoulder straps were still hanging off my shoulders and I had some neckline gape- so I'm pretty sure I also have narrow shoulders. The fit on a lot of RTW dresses and tops bears this out, so I should probably have realised sooner!

To fix the narrow shoulder issue I redrew the neckline curve to add half an inch to the neckline and removed that from the outer shoulder piece which brought the straps closer together and back to sitting properly on my shoulders. As I didn't think I had enough fabric to keep re-toiling, I just unpicked and restitched the same toile. All of this stitching and unpicking was not welcomed by my fabric, which doesn't hide marks particularly well after the second attempt at stitching! It was just as well I had the extra metre! I also stitched the shoulders slightly diagonally to take some excess fabric off the inside of the shoulder straps which removed a small amount of gape from the back straps (which I think means I have sloping shoulders too!?). Craig told me it was barely noticeable but it was bugging me...

In the end, I properly started sewing on Tuesday afternoon and needed it for a wedding on the Saturday. This should have been plenty of time, apart from making several mistakes which needed unpicking. I ended up taking length off the straps as well, but sadly didn't realise this until I had already constructed and lined the bodice so had a precarious 2 hours unpicking the understitching and straps enough to access the seams to fix this. I also missed the important fact that we were travelling up Friday mid afternoon which actually meant I had a whole day less than I'd realised. I had over a years notice... Why do I always do it?! I ended up visiting my local fabric shop on the Tuesday morning to buy overlocker thread, then went back on the Wednesday when I realised I didn't have a matching zip. Lots of time wasted unnecessarily if I'd planned ahead more. Definitely something to think about going forward.

Anyway, it was my second attempt at a Big Four pattern, as my first ever make was a vintage skirt pattern. I found the instructions were pretty good but at some points just failed me completely. The complication of it being fully lined threw me off at quite a few points. Thankfully I have a Craig who is logically minded and he helped me work things out at those points. It was a lot of stress though, which wouldn't have been an issue if i wasn't working to a deadline. (Sorry Craig.) I still haven't worked out how/when I was supposed to attach the lining of the bodice to the waist seam, so I need to handstitch that at some point.

I had one major mishap, my iron melted my lining fabric! I bought an ivory medium stretch lining, also from Minerva Crafts. It was a lot easier to sew with than my previous experience of more slippery, anti-static style linings, however I did find it would ladder quite easily if I wasn't careful when unpicking. I was impressed until I caught it somehow while moving my iron to a different part of the dress to iron. I hadn't changed my iron settings since I started making the dress, so I genuinely don't know why the iron heated up so much. Either way, there's a small patch less than an inch where the lining has melted, the rest of it is hidden in the seams. I also had a bad moment where it got completely chewed up in the machine and I had to get the screwdriver out!

Thankfully the zip went in neatly on the first attempt. I even shortened a zip for the first time as I couldn't find one the right length that I needed. Shortening it was so much easier than I thought it would be. I measured where I wanted it to end and marked that. I then sewed over the teeth after adjusting the stitch width to land on either side (don't want to snap a needle) and reducing the stitch length to almost 0. Put your foot down for a few seconds, job done! Cut off the remainder with some sharp scissors and sew it into your dress! (I used my fabric scissors and felt kinda bad afterwards, but my others weren't sharp enough).

I'm really pleased with the overall fit, there's no gaping but I can still move in it. I'm not sure how much of that is due to the stretch of the fabric so I think if I was to try this in a woven I would have to retoile and possibly add in some more ease as it's very fitted. I could also stand to remove some of the fabric from the skirt and make this from less fabric. The skirt is amazingly full, but I feel like it's a bit wasted without a petticoat (and I don't own one). It was lovely to dance and twirl in though!

Overall verdict: A stressful but successful make! There are so many beautiful versions of the B5748 dress, this is one I want to make again. More photos when I get a day off!

2018 - The Year of Sewing!

Fair warning: This is a very, very long post!

I got disillusioned with blogging, and stopped in 2016. No one is reading my blog apart from me so what's the point?


Turns out, I find it helpful to record project notes, adjustments, fabrics, patterns... so while I have a Maker's Workbook notebook in my sewing desk that I record into at the end of each project, it doesn't have space for any in-depth details. (But is well worth getting anyway, I've just bought my second volume.) I also feel like I haven't actually done much this year apart from be in work, which this post proves is ridiculous as I've still managed to make and do a lot.

Last year we bought/sold and moved house. I now have a beautiful sewing room, which is technically our spare room. I'm very, very lucky. It has a huge desk, so I get to look out over the valley, see the seasons change [read: freeze in the winter, sew in undies in the summer as it's in the attic!] and best of all the room has fitted furniture so all of my sewing stash hides away neatly.

I also found a surprise vintage Singer sewing machine in the cellar! Unfortunately it had several broken parts which were £40+ each to replace, so I bought a second machine (pictured below in its wooden frame) for £30 on ebay instead - which came with a coffin top box, original manual and key!

I managed to squeeze in a pair of yellow, grey and brown striped socks from The Knitting Goddess' stripe sock yarn club before Christmas. Oh, and meet our new cat Tyler! Unfortunately Minerva went missing in July and never returned :(

After not sewing anything for over a year, in October 2017 I was asked by an Australian locum friend in work to shorten some trousers for her. We got on brilliantly and as she sadly moved away to a new job in November 2017 I made a small bag for her to take on her travels, along with a pair of hand knitted socks. She crochets as well, so we used to have lovely chats and I still think about her often. She kickstarted a year of sewing, after (kindly) telling me off for not having touched my machine in over a year and telling me to get on with it!

While I was at it, I made a second bag for a dear friend in SF and posted it out to her, as a surprise Christmas present. When she visited in 2016 (oh dear) she picked out some fabric and then I packed everything away for when we moved house.... Finally got round to it.

Seeing as it was our first Christmas in the new house, we ended up hosting. So we bought two 6 foot folding tables and went to Ikea for 12 folding chairs. While there I decided to buy some fabric and made two white tablecloths, 12 placemats, 12 drinks coasters and two table runners to run the length of the tables. I finished these by sewing until gone 11pm the week before Christmas, in between working various shifts etc. I also handstitched a Christmas wall decoration.

Jemma came over for a few sewing sessions this year too, which was a lot of fun. Jemma was given a sewing machine last year by her Gran and wanted to check she was threading correctly etc, as she was teaching herself. We had a sleepover in January with wine, then made a lovely cushion the next day, before she went to work for her 4pm-midnight shift.

I also squeezed in another japanese knot bag for portable knitting projects.

We also had to say goodbye to Nigel this January, he had severe kidney disease as a result of being FIV positive, which we had never known about as he wasn't considered at risk and therefore had not been tested. I still miss them both so much.

After that I decided I wanted to make something to wear. I had been seeing loads of people posting pictures of beautiful Cleo dungaree dresses from Tilly, so I plucked up the courage. I used 1.5m of wine cotton twill from eBay, for £9.98 and was really pleased with it! I took 5 inches of ease off the waist, redrew the facings to match and redrew the hip curves to be more A-line rather than tulip.  Unfortunately I learnt the hard way that that fabric needs overlocking, or at least an overcast stitch as the hem literally disappeared in the first wash right down to the zig-zag stitch and I would have liked to add a second line of stitching to stop the hem from falling down. Ah well.

I made that dress in 3 days and wore it to a hen party in Bristol at the beginning of February. While we were all drunk a few of the girls commented on my dress (which is always lovely!) and in our joint drunkenness Sam and I decided to strike a deal. She makes the most amazing pork pies from scratch, so we agreed I would sew her a Cleo and she would make a pork pie, and we'd swap! I love a skill swap!! I literally pulled off the Cleo there and then, thankfully Sam is the same size as me.

Sam chose royal blue with dungaree buckles and I made it from the same fabric off eBay. Conscious of making something for someone else, it was hands down the best I have ever sewed! I took so much time and care over it, the white contrast topstiching is beautiful! I overlocked all the insides too so it looks just as good on the inside.

While sewing Sam's Cleo I started a corduroy royal blue version for myself, so that I could practice the steps on mine then do hers. My wine coloured one only had buttons, so I wanted to practice the buckles at least. I love my corduroy version the most and it's the most worn me-made than I own! The fabric is slouchy and relaxed, comfy and the colour cheers me up. I feel awesome in it.

I marked Sam's hem at the wedding, then sent it off in the post for her. She brought the pork pie with her to the wedding rather than posting it. It was huge!!

Thankfully she loved her dress! In between making the two Cleo's, I also offered to help the bride with any decorations she wanted and make hundreds of hessian penants, then strung them all up on twine for bunting. I tried applique for the first time, learnt that you can get splinters from hessian (who knew?!) and used nearly 500m of thread! I took my machine in for a service not long after, as it had worked bloody hard!

A friend in work gave me some hessian tablerunners so I hemmed those and they were gratefully received too. In return, Sian put me in a gorgeous bridesmaid dress from Motee Maids which was a pleasure to wear and dance in. We got to meet the owner of the company and find out how they hand bead each dress, which was lovely.

That takes us up to April!

In early March I discovered a sewing school in Bridgend, entirely by chance online. They were running a jersey dress class which I really wanted to do but was sadly fully booked. Instead, I signed for a mini quilting course in April which ran for 4 weeks. I bought a gorgeous Makower Floral Splendor FQ bundle from Higgs and Higgs, along with an insane number of other fat quarters - it's hard work buying quilting fabric online and trying to guess if that grey is exactly the right shade...

We were offered 3 patterns to chose from, so of course I went for the most fiddly one which was hard work to get done between shifts! On the day of the last class, I happened to be off having worked the weekend. I still didn't have a fully pieced section, let alone a fully pieced quilt top. So I got up early like I was going to work and sewed solidly from 9am to 5.25pm, with half hour for lunch and a 15 min break in the morning! Hard work, but I got it done, just in time to jump in the shower and drive there. I wanted to have it all done so I could try quilting and binding, which I managed to do. The finished article could be neater (Note to self: you really DO have to be accurate and put your ruler on the edge, not 1mm in from the edge as it throws everything else out!)

Gemma runs a fab class, so I signed up for a cami top two week course which involved purposely picking trickier fabrics like viscose or voile. I bought a lovely, buttery soft but slippery as hell viscose from Minerva Crafts. You don't normally know the pattern in advance, but I was really pleased that it turned out to be the Ogden cami top as I actually own it and have been meaning to make it for ages! I lengthened it by 2 inches and graded up 2 sizes from the bust to hips. Unfortunately I fell behind as I could NOT get the hang of using a loop turner to make the straps (had to ask the textiles teacher sat next to me to do them, thank you again!) and then everything shifted everywhere so it wasn't my best make. I still have to finish it, I forgot to trim before sewing the second seam of the french seams so it all sticks out... rookie mistake!

After chatting during the mini quilting course, Gemma mentioned she was also running a Washi dress course in June. I immediately rejigged all my shifts and booked on, because the Washi dress is another pattern I've owned and meant to make since first finding it years and years ago via blogs and seeing DFabrication make several versions, plus wearing them on the Great British Sewing Bee!

We adopted two new cats in April. They're feral stray rescues and it's taken us 5 months just to get one to jump up on the sofa with us. Having to tread very carefully with these boys, but it's worth it.

I treated myself to some leather and bag making supplies after seeing a nice feature in Simply Sewing magazine, the May issue. I really liked the small purse, so had a go at making my own. Next time, need to double the stitch length and maybe use leather thread as I used regular and too small a stitch so it ended up tearing really easily. Also, don't weigh the triangle down with a stone as it'll somehow leave a mark and use way more binding clips than you think you need as it likes to move around! Disappointed with the overall result sadly.

The Washi dress class in June was great fun. Shirring is SO much easier than I expected it to be! Not sure if I had beginners luck, or if it's my machine to thank. Some ladies had machines that just would not accept the shirring elastic so Gemma brought her machine in for them to use. All the same, I was pleasantly surprised. I cut a straight Medium with no alterations, chosen for me by Gemma based  on my high chest measurement. I have no other photos of this dress, this was taken in the pub the classes are held in as we waited for food afterwards!

The sewing school closes over the summer holidays, so instead Gemma ran a EPP hand sewing sew-a-long for a pattern she designed. It's called the Rennie. I started off so well! Got all my fabrics chosen, cut out and glued to the papers ready. I still haven't finished it to date though, so will have to update this post in the future.

In amongst this I also made up a pair of black out lined curtains for our spare room. No pics of this as yet, but they work and also make the room a lot colder/warmer depending on what we need in each season. Chalking that up as a win!

A colleague in work had seen my Cleo dresses, especially the two blue versions and asked me if I could make her one in July. She chose a lovely burgundy/wine coloured corduroy which I'm currently in the process of making.

I put that temporarily on hold in order to make a dress for a wedding of some close friends. Separate post on that, due to the sheer number of adjustments I had to make to the bodice! I'm also finishing a gift for them, which is why I put the Rennie sew-a-long on hold to make sure I had enough time to finish.

So what else is in store for 2018?

At the same hen party in February, Mariam asked if I could make a Cleo for her too. She picked out a beautiful floral cotton twill, which I bought back in April. I made the mistake of giving her the corduroy version to try on, which is a much softer fabric and Maz decided she wanted a more fitted back. After dithering over fitting options, looking at entirely different patterns etc, I met up with her and got her to try the twill version on as the fabric is much stiffer and more like the floral twill she chose. Maz was a lot happier with the fit of that, so I plan to cut that out in the next few weeks and get that done before Christmas.

I went to a #Walessews meet up in September which was brilliant fun. It was lovely to meet other sewists, especially as sewing can feel quite lonely sometimes in a way that knitting doesn't. I picked up a few beautiful grey jerseys that I have grand plans for.

I'm midway through a Linden jumper too, made from plum coloured french terry from Minerva Crafts. It's been really easy to sew with so far. Ran into a problem with the neckband though, as my fabric just doesn't quite have enough stretch. I ended up unpicking and recutting a new band, around 2 inches longer and 1/2 inch wider to help with the edges curling up. Almost nailed the second one, i stopped pulling quite as much on one quarter - heaven knows why, so unsurprisingly that section sticks up slightly on one shoulder. I'm currently holding off hemming and attaching the cuffs until I decide how much this is going to bug me...

I also have fabrics cut out to make a quilted gift bag for Mam and my MIL. We're off to SF in December so I have my work cut out for me!