Hooray! Our intrepid leader, Bonnie Hunter, has released the third clue for the Orca Bay Mystery and you can use Inklingo! I just found out. We don’t have any advance notice, so I have scrambled to put together a very special sale for you (below).

Bonnie said “the more the merrier” when I suggested writing about using Inklingo for the clues. If you check out her QuiltvilleChat Yahoo Group, you will see that quilters are using all kinds of special rulers, starch, and paper guides for the previous quarter square triangles (QST)—everything you can think of!

We know Inklingo is faster, easier, and more precise. LOL Of course we do! Monkey says the example below will show you why.

Make 350 Sawtooth Squares

That’s 700 little triangles! Don’t worry. They are quick and easy with Inklingo.

You can see why they are called HST—half square triangles, eh?

TWO-INCH STRIPS? YES!

Bonnie is well known for using strips of fabric, so some Orca Bay Mystery quilters will want to use their supply of 2 inch strips for their HST.

Hooray! You can use 2 inch strips with Inklingo too! It is always a little more fiddly to work with scraps, but Inklingo makes everything go smoothly for a perfect finish.

ONE: Check the Index of Shapes – Triangles.
1.5 inch HST are available in 3 different shape collections. (See the special prices below.) You might already have what you need, even if you don’t have HST 00B.

TWO: Print one fabric. The other fabric is not printed.
One Inklingo layout for HST has the triangles laid out in squares, and the other has them laid out in rectangles. For strips, use the one in RECTANGLES. You can print on 2 inch strips of fabric, or you can print a larger sheet, as shown:

(a) Print on a fabric strip 2 x 11.25, but cut the freezer paper 3 x 11.75. (Inkjet printers require a minimum of 3 inches wide.)
BTW, there are tips for printing on strips in an earlier blog post too, so you can be sure to position the fabric correctly on the freezer paper.
OR, even faster and better. . . .

(b) Print on a larger scrap or yardage. Cut the freezer paper 8.5 x 11.75,  iron it to the right side of the fabric, and trim around it with scissors at the ironing board.

You could save a sliver by cutting the fabric slightly smaller than the freezer paper, (maybe 8.25 x 11.25), but it is easier to trim to the same size as the freezer paper when you are pressing.

THREE: Cut the printed fabric into two-inch strips that fit on your other 2 inch strips (not printed).
No measuring! Just cut on the lines (shown in black, above).

FOUR: Layer the printed fabric right sides together on the 2 inch strips (or other scraps).
I use the walking foot on my machine, so there is no need to pin.

If you don’t have a walking foot, you might want to press the strips together first to prevent shifting, or pin once at the mid–point of the strip. (No starching.)

FIVE: Sew on the diagonal lines.
You can make 8 perfect Sawtooth squares with a strip like this one, sewing continuously. Sew immediately beside the dashed lines to get a scant 0.25 inch seam (not on the lines).
Start at one end and sew as shown by the red lines. When you get to the other end, turn around and come back, as shown by the blue lines.
It’s easier than chain piecing.

SIX: Cut on the solid lines. Three of the cuts are shown with heavy black lines above.
No measuring, so no special ruler. Any straight edge will do.
Zip. Zip. Zip.
If you need a portable project, you can even do the cutting with scissors!

SEVEN: Press.
You can see how I do it in the video at the bottom of the main Feathered Star page.

If you follow this example to get 8 completed squares from the strips, repeat 43 times. (8 x 44 = 352 Sawtooth Squares, so 2 extra)

You will be amazed by how fast it goes. If you print the larger sheet shown above to get 4 strips at a time, you will only have to print 11 sheets of fabric! <gasp> FAST or what?

Inklingo makes these HST easier than any other method and you will be sure every square will be the perfect size.

USE YARDAGE OR BIGGER SCRAPS? YES!

If you are NOT using 2 inch strips, it is even faster to print the layout with the triangles laid out in squares, as shown in the video.

(By the way, this video was made in 2006. Since then, thousands of quilters have discovered Inklingo, and the Patent has been granted. The website also looks a little different.)

ADVANTAGES

Either with scraps or with yardage, Inklingo has all of the advantages of chain piecing (continuous sewing) or paper piecing (sewing on a line), but you don’t ever have to fiddle with little pieces or sew a bias seam before it is cut—or pick off paper!

Print – Layer – Stitch – Cut

A very special sale!

Three choices! And yes, you can even have the special price on all three!

HST00B is $15 instead of $20 – Click

Storm At Sea 4.5 inch $20 instead of $25 - Click

Storm At Sea 9 inch $20 instead of $25 – Click

TO GET THE SPECIAL
You must mention Bonnie’s Mystery in the comment of your order to get the special price, okay? When you order, the higher amount will be approved, but I will manually process it for the special lower price.

As usual, if you buy a Storm At Sea shape collection for the 1.5 inch triangles, you will also get the Storm At Sea Design Book ($20 value) for no charge!

IMPORTANT TIME LIMIT
This sale only applies until Bonnie’s next clue is issued on Friday December 9 and if you note Orca Bay in a comment with your order. Don’t be late!

I think I know what you’ll be doing this weekend, eh? Let’s “do the Inklingo” (sounds like a dance) and have some fun!

By the way, I heard from a disappointed quilter last week who wished she had heard about Inklingo before she spent money on a very expensive alternative. Do a friend a favor and tell her how you make your HST with Inklingo, okay? She will thank you later.

Linda & Monkey in Canada

New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Quick Start (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.

Inklingo for Beginners

Tilde’s 15 Minute Challenge

“If I want to sew a HST to a side of a square, and I know the size of the side of the square (say, 2″), and I know that the diagonal of the HST has to be 2″ (duh!), what is the finished size of the HST going to be? Is there a formula for that?”

This is a great question. Yes, there is a formula, Donna.

We either multiply or divide, depending on which measurement we know.

The “magic number” is 1.414. 

Yes, really. 1.414.  I apologize.

In Donna’s example, the triangle would be 1.414 inches (finished), and it is available in an Inklingo shape collection.

Let me explain.

1.414 was discovered thousands of years ago by Pythagoras (left), and re-discovered by Monkey (right) when I was writing The Inklingo Handbook. LOL  Luckily, someone had invented a calculator in the meantime.

Inklingo quilters only need a passing familiarity with Pythagoras (born about 570 BC), his theorems, hypotenuses, and square roots. 

Just remember 1.414. That’s enough.

  Multiply or Divide by 1.414

Monkey says:

• If you know the number should be bigger than the one you know, multiply.
• If you know the number should be smaller than the one you know, divide.

If you know that B is 3 inches (finished size),
     to get A, we divide by 1.414.  A = 2.12

If you know that A is 3 inches (finished size),
     to get B, we multiply by 1.414.  B = 4.24

In Donna’s example, if we know B is 2 inches, we divide by 1.414, and A is 1.414. (That is spooky, until you realize that the square root of 2 is 1.414. Getting into deep water here. Quilters don’t need to know about square roots.)

When your calculator gives you the finished size, you can check to see if it is available by going to the Inklingo Index of Shapes (under the Support tab on inklingo.com).

2.12 inch HST? YES! Available! So are 1.41 inch HST. Isn’t that cool? Also 4.24 and 2.83 and others. Designs like Storm At Sea are chock full of weird measurements like this, but you don’t have to fear them anymore!

If anyone had told me 40 years ago how useful geometry would be to me now, I would not have believed it. Since Inklingo, Pythagoras and I are BFF.

NO MATH !

Hooray!  Inklingo does all the work for you. You just print precise shapes on fabric with your ordinary Inkjet printer. No measuring, no fuss. Perfect shapes. Even Storm At Sea becomes easy. (Get the design book—$10 or free!)

ANOTHER LOOK

In many cases, quilters start with the finished size of the whole block, and work backwards to get the finished size of the triangles and the square. 

For example, if you know you want the block to be 4 inches (finished),

     A = 2  

     A x 1.414 = B = 2.83

When we look in the Inklingo Index of Shapes, we see that the squares and HST are available in one of the shape collections. Life is good.

INKLINGO INDEX OF SHAPES

There are several odd-looking sizes in the Index of Shapes. Now you know why.

More resources:

• Snowball block Video
• Triangle Tips PDF
• The Inklingo Handbook, pages 114 and 115 discuss the magic number 1.414

Whew! Thank you, Donna, for a great question!

Linda & Monkey

PS Don’t forget to leave a comment HERE to have a chance to win a $25 Gift Certificate on Mother’s Day!

New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Quick Start  (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares  in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.

“Half Square Triangles” and “Quarter Square Triangle” are important for quilters. They should not be a mystery.

> > > The only difference between an HST and a QST is the straight grain.

These Inklingo triangles are both daffodil-colored (see below) and identical in size, but the straight grain is different.

For HST, the straight grain is on the two short sides. For QST, the straight grain is on the long side.

It’s that simple. No mystery.

HST, QST, VUI

Monkey says understanding HST and QST is VUI (very useful info, LOL). 

Quilters want to have straight grain on the outside edges of quilt block and quilt tops whenever humanly possible.

WHY ARE THEY CALLED HALF SQUARE TRIANGLES?

Q. These triangles are used in many ways, not necessarily sewn into squares (Sawtooth Squares), so why are they called Half Square Triangles? 

A. Because in the olden days (pre-Inklingo), quilters cut squares in half on the diagonal to get two at a time.

See the free Triangle Tips PDF on the Inklingo web site under the Machine Piecing tab.

PRE-INKLINGO TRIANGLES

If you learned how to make triangles the old-fashioned way, before Inklingo, you are familiar with adding 7/8 inch to the measurement of a square to cut Half Square Triangles.

Whenever possible, pattern designers use HST which are easy to measure. They like to avoid measurements in eighths. For this reason, a pattern may require you to cut a strip 3.5 inches wide, then cut the strip into 3.5 inch squares, and then cut the squares in half diagonally.  In that case, the FINISHED size of each triangle is 2.625 inches (2-5/8 inches).

It is ironic that because of the “olden days way” of cutting HST, when designers want to avoid asking a quilter to measure and cut eighths of an inch, the finished triangles end up being in eighths. 

Why do you need to know about 7/8?

Inklingo quilters don’t have to measure or add 7/8 any more, because all Inklingo shapes are named with the finished size.

However, if you are using a pre-Inklingo pattern, this info will help you determine the finished size of the triangles, if it is not stated.

7/8 = 0.875

To avoid the math, tell designers you want their patterns to identify the finished sizes!!

Working backwards, if a pattern requires you to cut a square on the diagonal for two triangles, if you subtract 7/8 (0.875) from the size of the square, you know the finished size of the HST triangles.

The new Inklingo Half Square Triangle Shape Collection includes 12 different sizes which would traditionally have been cut from squares 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2.0, 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, 3.0 3.25, 3.5, 3.75, 4.0 inch—very common sizes.

More shapes and sizes are added every few weeks. Check the Inklingo Index of Shapes (under the Support tab) to find the shapes and sizes you need.

WHY DO QUILTERS LOVE INKLINGO TRIANGLES?

Printing triangles on fabric with Inklingo is

• faster
• simpler
• more accurate

That’s a beautiful thing.

Printing the shapes on fabric is another beautiful thing:

• No measuring
• No math
• Just print one of the two fabrics (usually the lighter one)
• No tricky tools
• No paper to pick off
• Correct straight grain
• Sew bias seams before they are cut
• Precision corners
• Cut with scissors or a rotary cutter

With Inklingo, you just need to know the finished size and where you want the straight grain, so the question is . . . . Half Square Triangles or Quarter Square Triangles? HST or QST? 

Now you know.

The daffodils are blooming in our back yard. Spring is here!

Linda & Monkey

PS Don’t forget to leave a comment HERE to have a chance to win a $25 Gift Certificate on Mother’s Day!

New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Quick Start  (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares  in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.

Print – Layer – Stitch – Cut

Print the shapes on one fabric with an ordinary Inkjet printer, layer with unprinted fabric, stitch, and cut on the lines. Perfect!

Monkey says there are so many advantages with Inklingo that it is hard to imagine why anyone still uses any other method for triangles, especially HST (half square triangles).

• no math (like adding 7/8 to other numbers), because you only need to know the finished size
• no measuring, so no weird rulers or tools required
• a line to guide the stitching, so accurate triangles are easy, even for beginners
• sew before cutting the bias side, which was one of the big advantages of old-fashioned “triangle papers”
• precision corners, so Inklingo triangles are easier to match with other shapes
• no paper to pick off
• sew fabric, not paper! (although if you prefer sewing paper, you can print Inklingo triangles and save money compared to buying them)
• cut with a rotary cutter or scissors, which is great for quilters with carpal tunnel or arthritis
• compatible with any book or pattern which uses the same shapes

This video was made in 2006. Since then, thousands of quilters have discovered Inklingo, and the Patent has been granted.

On the weekend, a new shape collection for Half Square Triangles was added.

A quick way to check for sizes is the Inklingo Index of Shapes (under the Support tab on the Inklingo web site).

WIN A $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE

You can leave a comment OR tip for sewing with kids  HERE by Mother’s Day (8 May 2011) to be in a draw for a $25 gift certificate.  

Stay tuned for more info about triangles on the blog too, okay?

Linda & Monkey

New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Quick Start  (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares  in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.

You might be surprised that making one can be condensed into 80 seconds. That’s seconds, not minutes.

TURN YOUR SPEAKERS ON!

We synced the images to The William Tell Overture. It makes editing more fun, and we hope it will make you laugh. (Music licensed from Unique Tracks)

If you don’t have sound on your computer, please hum the theme from the Lone Ranger while you watch.

WHAT YOU SAW

• Frogs can have feathers. Really.
• With Inklingo, there is always a line to cut on—no measuring!
• Cut with scissors or a rotary cutter.
• Every shape has perfect cutting lines, stitching lines, matching marks, and crosshairs.
• Print, layer, stitch, and cut.

• For 96 triangles, only one piece of fabric is printed (no bias strips!)
  Print 48 and layer with unprinted fabric.

• All of the bias seams in the feathers are stitched before they are cut.
• Inklingo shapes can be fussy cut.
• Every Inklingo shape has perfect corners, so adding triangles to the octagon is easy.

• The pressing guide shows which direction to press.
• The pressing guide keeps me organized at the sewing machine.
• The pressing guide allows me to check the size so everything fits perfectly.
• It helps to finger press the triangles before using the iron.

• There is a “combo layout” to print diamonds and squares at the same time.
• Inklingo is simpler, more fun, and faster than templates, measuring, weird rulers, or paper piecing.

WHAT YOU DID NOT SEE

• Inset seams—because there aren’t any.
• Partial seams—because they look just like regular seams (and are just as easy).
• Freezer paper can be reused.
• Everything is on perfect straight grain. (It is there, but I think it flashed by too fast to see it.)
• Trimming the seam allowances is optional.
• Templates, measuring, weird rulers, or paper to pick off. You didn’t see any of that!
• This could have been a portable project. It is more fun to hand piece when it is so easy to prepare with perfect stitching lines. Sew it all by hand, all by machine, or a combination of both—thanks to the printed lines.
• Choosing the fabric is the hardest part. It doesn’t go that fast.

The center of Inklingo Feathered Stars is a standard size, so I could have used any 6 inch block instead of the octagon. The whole star is about 20 inches.

NOW YOU MAKE ONE, OKAY?

There are three different sizes to choose from. The centers are 4.5 inches, 6.0 inches, or 9.0 inches.

Illustrated, step by step instructions are in the Feathered Star Design Book. It is half price ($10) or FREE (details on the web site). You can turn the 85 pages at your own pace, or really, really fast, synced to your favorite music. 

If you join the Inklingo Yahoo Group, you can see photos of Kathy Timmons’ fussy cut Feathered Stars. She used owls, not frogs. They are stunning.

QUILT DESIGNERS

Inklingo quilters are looking for patterns! Feathered Star is now within reach of many more quilters. Why not design an inklingoable quilt with Feathered Star? Let me know if you would like tips for designing with Inklingo. You can do it on your own, but if you let me know, I can help. You are also welcome to embed this video on your blog or web site. (Affiliate Info)

Thank you very much for visiting and for watching the video. If you like it, please tell your friends—and leave a comment or suggestion for us too.

Linda & Monkey

PS  Looking for something else? There’s a search box at the top (above the header). There are other recent messages about Feathered Star too. 

New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Quick Start  (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares  in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.

There are 112 triangles in the feathers of this 20 inch block. Some Feathered Stars don’t have this many feathers but they are so easy with Inklingo, that we want lots. The more feathers, the more impressive the block!

The Feathers: Print, Layer, Stitch, and Cut

Print 64 triangles on one of the feather fabrics. I usually choose the lighter fabric so the ultra-fine lines are easier to see. 

48 in 8.25 x 12.25

 The other 48 are not printed.

16 in 4.25 x 8.5

 Inklingo uses fabric very efficiently.

 Layer 48 printed triangles with the unprinted feather fabric, and sew along all of the diagonal dashed lines.

Cut on the solid lines. Press to the dark.

That’s it! Print, layer, stitch, and cut. You have made 48 perfect “Sawtooth Squares” in just a few minutes!

And did you notice?
   • No math
     (Never add 7/8ths to anything ever again!)
   • No tricky measuring
     (These are 1.06 inch HST, so the center can be any 6 inch square.)
     (For the 15 inch block, they are 0.795 inch HST.)
     (For the 30 inch block, they are 1.59 inch HST.)
   • No expensive templates
     (Inklingo saves you time, fabric, and money!)
   • No bias strips
   • All of the stretchy bias seams are sewn before they are cut
   • No special rulers
   • No trimming to size
   • Cut with scissors or a rotary cutter
   • Every square is perfect!

Chain piece the Sawtooth Squares, diamonds, and squares into rows of feathers. 

Print the ingenious Inklingo pressing guide on fabric or paper and check the size.
(You can adjust your seam allowances, if necessary.)