How’s that for a blog post title? Made me laugh out loud! But this is all about my method of chain piecing HSTs by hand. I know, I know — chain piecing is what machine piecers do. But I’ve found a way to chain piece by hand and I think it’s fabulous. This way I’m not dealing with stretchy bias edges. Those seams are stitched before the HSTs are cut apart.

To begin with, using one of the shapes in the Inklingo Celtic Solstice collection (but this would work with any of the Inklingo triangles and there are lots and lots of them) I printed all my HSTs on both the fabrics I’m using. Then I cut them into squares like this. One side is my green/gold fabric.

The other side is the yellow fabric. The solid lines are the eventual cutting lines while the dotted lines are the stitching lines.

I lined them up, and using a #12 sharp as my pin, pinned through one of the intersections.

Checked the back to make sure my pin was through the intersection on the yellow fabric.

Then I made my flat knot at the beginning of the seam and began to stitch, just a thread above the stitching line.

I checked on the back to make sure I was staying just above the stitching line and into the seam allowance on the yellow piece as well.

I took a backstitch and using a simple running stitch, kept stitching just above the stitching line.

Before I pull the needle through I always check on the back to make sure I’ve stayed just above the stitching line on the yellow fabric as well.

Then I keep stitching to the end of the seam line, taking a backstitch after every four or five stitches. At the end of the seam, I make another flat knot.

I always turn it over before pulling the needle and thread through, just to make sure the stitching is staying just a thread above the stitching line.

And now the chaining by hand really begins. I haven’t cut the thread. What I have done is pin the end of the seam on the other HST and begun to take the first stitch on the second HST.

But before I pull the thread through I turn it over and make sure that I’ve pinned it right through the intersection on the yellow piece and that my first stitch is going to be right at the beginning of the seam on the yellow piece.

It is, so I pull the needle and thread through and make another flat knot. And here you can see that the thread is not broken between the two seams I’m sewing.

So I carry on stitching just a thread above the stitching line all the way to the end of the second seam. But I’m not breaking my thread yet. I make another flat knot at the end of that second seam.

And then I pick up a second pair of HSTs and pin the end of one seam and more chaining by hand is about to begin.

I start stitching at the beginning of that second pair of HSTs with another flat knot. And repeat the whole process once more. If you click on this photo to enlarge it I think you can see that the thread between the four HSTs hasn’t been broken.

After I’ve stitched the four seams, I take my final flat knot and cut the thread. Then the magic happens. I cut on the cutting lines and cut right through those threads that were connecting the HST pairs. Because I’ve made  a flat knot at the beginning and end of each seam, I have no worries about the seams coming undone when I cut through that little connecting piece of thread.

A few seconds later, the HSTs are cut apart, pressed and I have four perfect little HSTs. And, thanks to the perfect cutting lines I’ve got no dog ears to worry about — they’re all gone and my pieces are going to be very easy to stitch together into whatever blocks they are about to become.

The backs look as good as the fronts. I haven’t graded these seams yet but will before I set them together.

And it took way, way, way less time to stitch those four HSTs than it did to even read this little tutorial. It is chaining by hand. And it’s fast. And I bet I can do 20 or 30 pairs of them in next to no time. So I get the benefits of chain piecing but I also get to piece by hand, which I find much more relaxing than machine piecing.

“Beaming.” Seems the kitty teleporter has been warmed up and I have it on good authority that two more kitties are joining the festivities tomorrow. In the meantime, it looks like more decorations have been pulled out of the box and everyone is wearing a Santa hat!

Baxter and Jake hope you found this little tutorial as relaxing as they did. In fact, they appear to be sound asleep. They’re probably hoping I’ll leave a box of fabric pieces open for them to get at and are trying to lull me into a false sense of security by pretending to be asleep.