Half Square Triangle Tutorial (and lots of ways to arrange them).

Half square triangles are a staple of learning how to quilt! Besides squares, they might by the most versatile of quilt block elements and once you start looking for them, you’ll start to notice how many quilt blocks are comprised of them!

So today I’m going to show you a video tutorial on how to make half square triangles in the size you need, without them ending up crooked or too small! Then I’ll show you several ways you can arrange half square triangles into quilt blocks or even entire quilts!

Let’s hop to it.

How to Make Half Square Triangles for Quilt Projects

Ways to Arrange Half Square Triangles into Quilt Blocks

I went ahead and arranged 25 HST into some various quilt block ideas, so you could have a visual. These ideas are certainly not comprehensive, but they’ll give you an idea of how different this simple little element can look just by turning them this way and that!

Here are my half square triangles arranged several ways:

This first one is probably one of my favorites, I just love the scrappy pinwheel look. But if you’ll look at it a different way, they are also little hourglass blocks.

The most basic arrangement tends to be one I use pretty often. I’ve made quick and sweet baby quilts by simple pointing half square triangles in the same direction, though I’ve also make them all pointed in random directions, which I like equally much.

Flying geese can be a little tedious to make, so arranging flying geese to mimic them instead is a great idea in my book.

Arranging them into diamonds makes a fun, clean, classic look. As with any of these designs, the fabric choices can really create such interesting effects! If all the white fabrics were as scrappy as the blues, imagine how cool that would look!

The classic zig zag is a great design for half square triangles, especially if you get creative and figure out how to change the direction of the zig zag in certain place. What an interesting quilt that would make!

Lastly, and my other favorite option, if you direct each quadrant of half square triangles to point into the center, you end up with a very cool effect! I love how traditional and symmetrical this one is, it just really sings to me. I’d love to make a quilt with this design, actually.

Like I said, there are many more ways to arrange your half square triangles. And combined with solid squares, the options are even more endless. So many quilt blocks are comprised solely of those two elements! I hope you’re feeling inspired to try sewing some and playing with them to see what you can create :)

Here are a couple of quick graphics I created, which you can right click and save if you want, for future reference. Just right click on each of the two images (there are four layouts per page) and you’ll be able to save to your computer, then print if you want.