I've been having fun with my fungly blocks and wanted to show you how I make my half square triangles with little waste. For my largest sized blocks (unfinished- 9") I cut squares approximately 3.5 inches (remember- these are liberated so perfect squares are unnecessary). I cut 9 for the background and 3 for the triangles. I cut the three squares in half for the half square triangle units. I chain piece triangles to squares. For the Jacks on Six block there are 6 of these units, plus three plain squares. After piecing I trim the little extra triangle from the corner.
Then I square up the unit and continue making the block. To make the middle sized block (6" unfinished), I cut 8 2.5" squares for the background, 1 2.5" square for the middle and take four reserved triangles for the corners. Chain piece as before, trim the extra off again, square up the units and continue on.
This last little triangle will be used for the smallest block (4.5" unfinished). For these I cut the squares to 2". The triangle trimmings from these smallest blocks are too small to use (in my opinion!) so I toss them. All these blocks are made such that there is a little extra to trim off when I square it up. There's enough room to cut them at an angle too, if you wish.
After the big Jacks on Six block I went back to my favorite Shoo fly blocks, but there are of course, enough triangles to make more of these half square units, so I end up sewing triangle to triangle and I save them to make wonky little pinwheels or sawtooth borders. I managed to make a huge dent in my scrap pile over the past two weeks. And the big fungly has grown.
Here's a sneak peek of what's going on with some of the smallest blocks. This is sure fun!
