wip wednesday 2026.9

i got some sunday slow stitching done this past weekend and i finally came up with a pattern order for my stitching on "groovy liberty." i've been stitching the middle of each piece in the pinwheels of this block, but there was no good or obvious way to work around the block as the stitching is not connected from one piece to the next and the stop and start points on the ends aren't always close enough to each other to easily move between on a continuous thread. this slow stitching session, however, a feasible order of stitching occurred to me. if you look closely at the stitching done in the above photo you can see my plan of attack. i know it's so hard to see in the floral piece, but if you look closely/zoom in, you can see that the floral piece in the upper right corner has stitching across the middle horizontally.

the stitching starts in the bottom right corner on that dark chambray piece. i stitched a vertical straight line in the middle from the bottom near the lower sashing to the top, ending just before the floral piece. then i move my needle under the fabric to the far right side of the floral piece, poking the needle back through at the horizontal mid-point of the floral piece, next to the sashing on the right, and stitch across the middle of the floral piece towards the center of the block. it's kind of an inverted L shape or an off-center T shape, except the lines don't touch anywhere. i cut my thread length just long enough to do those two pieces, so i tie off after making that L/T. then I'll start over in the next chambray piece in the top right corner and turn 90 degrees down to do the adjacent floral piece to it's left. i can do this four times per block and just keep wrapping around 90 degrees each time. if i wanted to work with a longer thread length, i could easily move to that green "thorpe" piece in the upper left square and then move to the chambray in the upper right corner next before having to tie off. but i like the shorter length for now.

easy - peasy and it feels good to have a consistent plan.

d1 & R came to help out for their portion of d4's birthday quilt. so we got that top all put together into a flimsy now.

now that she's done with all the 16 patches for "pinky stinky" edna, d5 and i have been discussing her next quilt make. she's been wanting to make use of the fat quarter set heather ross gave her at quiltcon 2025. she wants to fussy cut the ponies and feature them in the quilt. she's been pouring over my books and wracking her brain for an idea.

 we spread out the beautiful courthouse steps quilt i got from jennifer (penelope handmade) to look at that pattern because it's simple and d5 likes it so much. we were pretty much decided on this one with 4" pony squares for the hearth pieces until she started seeing dumbbell shapes in the blocks. so there went that (easy) idea. she really wanted to make economy blocks but i was trying to find something with larger blocks and simpler piecing for her to tackle. plus, we couldn't get enough ponies out of the fat quarter if we cut them in diamond shapes. so no economy blocks this time.

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when i got jennifer's newsletter featuring her newest pattern, constance, i knew we'd found our pattern. it's going to be so cute and will help push d5's skills up a little with the introduction of hsts and flip-and-stitch flying geese. we're excited! she'll be doing a toddler size for her niece, little A.

i've been working on the quilting for "frosted forest star" here and there. i spent one evening labouring over it, getting basically no where because the thread kept breaking about every foot. oh my goodness, was that frustrating! i tried everything: changed the thread spool for a brand new one, changed the needle (twice), cleaned out the interior of the machine (which was pretty clean), adjusted tension, adjusted bobbin tension, switched bobbins, changed the needle a 3rd time. after a while, i remembered having the identical problem with this same thread on "radiant suzy" many years ago. i looked up blog & intsa posts to see how i solved the problem before. the answer last time was "tension." that was unhelpful as i'd already adjusted that as much as i could and was getting no where. 

i finally changed machines altogether. i'd been working on d5's 2020 juki and switched to my original tl2010q for two reasons: the 2020 special edition doesn't go quite as slow on the turtle and the thread looked like it was getting rubbed somewhere along the path to the needle, and the original machine was the one i'd done this quilting on before and gotten it to work on. i'd been meaning to switch around which machine does what in the sewing room set-up anyway. it makes sense that the piecing machines are closer to the pressing table and across from each other and that the quilting machine is at the end of the table where there's more runway for the bulk of the full quilt behind it. that's all settle and situated now.

it took a trial run or two to get the tension correct on the new/old machine, but in the end it worked. hallelujah! i'm so much happier now. seriously, i could have probably completed the entire quilt in the time it took me to do a 1/3 of it with the thread breaking constantly.

weekly report

piecing

• d4's 16th birthday quilt flimsy completed

epp 100 days project

• i will be talking about this project next post. it's not a new project but a new approach to an ooooold project. i'm doing a little epp every day in hopes of moving the 13 yr old wip towards the finish line.

quilting

• "frosted forest star" straightline quilting begun

handquilting

• 4.25 "groovy liberty" blocks stitched (10.25/42)

planning/fabric pulls

• selected a pattern and fabrics for d5's next project: constance

purchases

• "constance" pattern from jennifer jones at "penelope handmade" (but this isn't for me)
• no fabric! that's two months straight no fabric purchased

robin nests

 

the design wall is layered up three deep at the moment. my grandchildren came over for the evening while their parents went out and r and i got to sew together for the first time this year. i asked him if he wanted to work on his quilt or make some "cute betsy hearts." he chose the quarter log cabins, which i now call "robin nests" rather than "valoe cabin." i wanted to see what we'd made so far so we could keep mixing up the colors, so i put them up on the design wall on top of "pinky stinky."

i've been letting r decide which order to put the colors in, but we're ending up with a lot in a similar configuration, so i intervened a little for a few blocks and we are now a little better mixed.

to keep him from curiously pushing buttons and turning dials on the sewing machine while i'm pressing seams open and cutting strips, i introduced him to a little basket of scraps i've been saving for him to snip. using scissors develops fine motor skills in young children, so i like to give him opportunities to work on those skills. d5 looooved to cut paper or fabric into tiny little snow flurries when she was small. i've been saving my too-small scraps for r for a few months now so that he can have fun with harmless, skill-developing cutting, too. he definitely enjoyed it! 

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an added bit of nostalgia was realizing the basket i put the scraps in was one d5 used to collect her own scraps in over a decade ago.

we switched up the sweet bowl for some valentine's leftovers. r wanted to put them in the harp space right in front of him so he could keep an eye on them while we sewed. he gets to pick one piece after each block we complete, which means he only got two in this session.

we were having some real difficulties with the stitch getting dropped after the first few on each new seam. it was getting really frustrating for me. i checked the bobbin several times, adjusted the tension on it, cleaned out the inside of the machine more than once. nothing was helping. i was also hearing a weird triple click every two seconds. i thought for sure something was wrong with the bobbin. finally, i decided to do the fail-safe thing and change the needle. r turned over the "key" (the machine's screwdriver piece, which he insists on holding every time we sew) so i could turn the screws for the needle.

voila! it worked it's magic just like it always does. no more issues, all smooth sailing.

sixteen going on eighteen

does this look familiar? it's not technically my project, so its not listed on my wip page.

i was browsing old blog posts looking for something in particular when i came across the post about d4's 8th/16th birthday quilt. her 18th birthday is right around the corner and we haven't worked on the quilt since the birthday two years ago when we started piecing it together. 

d4 (once my mostly sewing companion) is about to become a legal adult and will be leaving home for college in the fall (she just got accepted to her school of choice). i realized we need to get this quilt finished stat! one of the special features we worked into this quilt is that every member of the family sewed some of the pieces together at some point. everyone except d1 and two siblings that both happened to be home this weekend. i jumped up off the couch and found the project box for the quilt. now was the time to do it!

s2 was in town for a weekend break from college. we got him to add his stitches to a couple of blocks.

d2 was next. i grabbed her before she left to the climbing gym with d5. the middle siblings have now done their part.

we only had the last two columns to put together, so i made d4 drop her lazy saturday afternoon plans and finish joining the rest of the columns while i pressed, pinned, and handed her pieces.

the top is nearly complete! we left one long seam joining the last two columns to the rest of the top for d1 and r to do when they come over for sunday dinner tomorrow. we want them to have a hand in the making, too.

in order to get as much done as possible, i got d4 to make the binding. we picked that out two years ago, so it was an easy make, done in minutes.

i have the backing pieces ready to go together and will be doing that myself later this evening. we should be able to baste it tomorrow after d1 and r finish the top for us. we were already pretty close to a finish on this, and now i can taste it. it's about time! ten years is long enough.

wip wednesday 2026.8

after i finished the quilting for "bright forest" with the tawny gold aurifil 2318 thread, i looked to see if i had any more quilts that would look good with this thread for a quilting color that would also be quilted with the walking foot. 

i was thrilled to decide that this combination, already on the machine, would work for my "improv in an afternoon" quilt that i adore so much but haven't managed to finish yet. this was a happy find for me and i quickly bumped the quilt to the top of the queue for working on. (did you guess right after i hinted which quilt would be next?)

i put the guide foot on so i could do some straightline quilting and it mysteriously allowed me to get much closer to the foot/make a smaller space than when i used it previously. in fact, i started out with something like 3/4" spacing, which i bumped up to a full inch after a few lines because it was going to take forever to complete at that rate. i did actually think the 3/4" spacing was attractive, but it was being so tedious and monotonous that i changed it. i timed myself: each line took about 3.5 minutes to complete. after a couple of sessions that were a ew hours each, i was done. it may have been monotonous endlessly feeding the quilt through the machine in a straight line, but i was constantly delighted by the fabrics and colors in the top, so it sort of evened out and made it bearable.  

this is a small quilt, to be sure. it's definitely in the toddler size category and it would certainly suit a little girl well. but i love it so much myself that i don't think i can send it away to be grubbed up by any little girl i know. i wish i had made it a lap size quilt, but i think part of the idea behind it was to use a specific piece of extra batting, which is what determined the size. so, small it is.

 

i'm glad to be moving these other projects along in addition to "pinky stinky" edna. i'm really looking forward to having handbinding to do soon once i'm done with the batch quilting of the six in the quilting queue. i also took out another piecing project just for a change and worked on that, too.

i have an actual report this week, not just an "i did more edna and here's what went wrong."

piecing

• i worked up the star points on all the sashing for the last two rows of "pinky stinky" edna
• d5 made 7 more 16-patch blocks (yay!!! - 3 left to go)
• 8 cute betsy hearts
• 2 quarter log cabin blocks with R for "robin nests"

quilting

• "bright forest" started and completed
• "improv in an afternoon" started and completed

fabric pulls

• i got to thinking about what fabrics i might like to use for "edna" so i can try the pattern again, doing the easy version (not organized scrappy and no 16-patches) this time. i'm thinking of black gingham for the stars and a soft blue for the background squares. i pulled a couple of vintage farmhouse type florals in yellow and red to use for the sashings. it was a fun exercise to match the fabrics, but i won't be cutting into it any time soon - too many wips to complete first!

fabric purchases

• none! still going strong on that front and just using stash. i was tempted to look for some fabric on etsy for some idea or other that i had, but i got over it.

cute betsy hearts resized

after posting about christmas trees in the month of valentine's hearts, i thought, "maybe i should get out my cute betsy hearts and play a little." so i had a little fun making some hearts over the weekend.

i pulled out the project box and was surprised by the number of colorways of betsy i had stashed away. i didn't realize i had maybe 20 in there and not represented on the main liberty shelf. so, that's a good reminder to myself, for one.

the next thing i had to remind myself of was the dimensions for these hearts that i settled on after experimenting a little. when i wrote up the tutorial for these hearts, i was intending to use 2.5" strips. however, i decided i liked a smaller version, but i hadn't written my new formula down anywhere*. i had to measure the pieces in a finished block to get my own cutting dimensions. 

here are the cutting dimensions i've been using for the blocks now:

• 1 - 2" square of betsy for the heart
• 1 - 2" x 3.5" rectangle of betsy for the heart
• 1 - 2" square of background for the heart
• 2 - 3" squares, cut diagonally, corner-to-corner, of background for outer triangle pieces

 after making one heart in that gorgeous mustard and neon pink colorway (maybe my favorite betsy?), i realized i'm going to need a whole lot of blocks for even a small quilt as these will finish at 4.25" square. even though i have a lot of colorways of betsy, one block per colorway is not going to get me very far at all.

thus, i began making the hearts in sets of four. i'll probably have to circle back and make more of each after i do some maths, but it's a good start. plus, it's easier to make these in sets so i can chain piece them.

that was a fun midday break in the middle of lots of other work going on here. although moving projects toward completion as i have been doing is quite gratifying, i do so enjoy having variety in my making. with so many wips in the works, i can manage doing both right now without starting anything new!

*note: looking over my tutorial post a little more closely, i see that at the end of the instructions not only did i give a formula for figuring out different sized blocks, i also included the cutting dimensions for three other sizes of hearts, including the 2" strip size i'm using here. haha, i need to read my own instructions a little more closely. 

trees, not hearts

finally, something other than pink to share, even if it is dreadfully out of season. i finally got a chance to work on the quilting of my last batch of basted quilts. first up was "bright forest" because of the color that was on the machine that had the walking foot attached.

this golden tan-ish aurifil 2318 was on the machine that d1 was using to attach her binding. the correct foot was also on the machine, so i looked over the available quilt options to see if any of them would look good with this color and save me the trouble of changing thread.

at first glance, none of the quilts were obvious candidates, but as i thought about what it would look like on "bright forest," i decided it would be a subtle golden holiday touch to the otherwise very bold and bright quilt. using a more intense gold color would compete with the fabric colors in a way i didn't fancy but the soft gold would add a touch of holiday sparkle without competing or clashing. and i'm happy with the results, so i approve of my choice.

i chose a simple quilting pattern: straight lines through the middle of all the sashings and cornerstones and then straight lines through the horizontal and vertical centers of each block.

with the quilt rolled in at the sides in preparation for feeding through the machine, you can see the different fabrics of the backing and how well they compliment the random collection of colors i used on the front. i'm really so very pleased with how this back turned out and feel like it just makes the quilt. i was rather ambivalent about the top once all the blocks were done, then the sashing and cornerstones helped me like it more. the backing makes me like it a lot now. those boxy bears and the trees were worth the price i paid for them for the way they elevate the overall quilt and enhance the vibe. plus, the selvage, which is included and shows in the backing, has "2020" printed in it, the year this quilt and its companion got their start from a random collection of kona colors i ordered at the same time.

i'm not even minding the christmas colors and motifs in the month of hearts and flowers and all things love. it does make me think i should pull out those "cute betsy hearts" since it's february, but we'll see what i get around to in what's left of the month. knocking out a few more hearts would be fun . . .

what was not fun: finding a pin stuck in the quilt while i was working on the quilting. d5 was sitting at the machine across from me working on her 16-patch blocks and i thought she'd let a pin go astray, but on examination discovered it was actually embedded inside the quilt sandwich. i must have accidentally let it fall on the backing which was spread on the floor before i added the batting to it. so very odd! fortunately, i discovered the pin by the smallest of pokes to my finger while moving the quilt around under the walking foot and at an early enough point in the process that no unpicking was required to reach my hand inside the sandwich and remove it.

this is all worked up now, so which quilt do you think i put under the walking foot next? hint: it's not from the same batch but from a previous basting batch. if you look under the "quilting queue" on my "wips" page, you might be able to guess.

wip wednesday 2026.7

 

i think i failed to mention in my last post that this blog is now fifteen years old. that means i've been quilting nearly a third of my life, which feels so strange since i took it up in my later 30's, well into adulthood. in the end, i will have been a quilter longer than i wasn't one. i didn't see that coming.

what have i accomplished in 15 years of quilting? take a look at my "quilt gallery" page to see what i've completed and my "wips" page to see what i'm still working on. the ratio is about 2:1. it’s not just about the finishes or the endless WIPs  it’s been about a whole lot of fun and learning and fabric and friends mixed in with a lot of mistakes and miscuts and frustrations. quilting has taught me a lot, given me a lot these past 15 years.

the opening photo is of a project nearly as old as this blog: my "london wardrobe" epp project. i began these hexagon-and-square-and-triangle wheels in 2013, planning to make 100 of them. currently, i have 22 full wheels, 2 sets of 3 interlocking wheels, and one middle piece complete. there are about a dozen hexagons and an innumerable amount of triangles and squares basted and even more cut, ready to baste. i have large cuts of a few feature fabrics for the backing and of the low-volumes for background for the front.

i took the project back out a few months ago to assess what can be done with it. i no longer have an interest in completing 100 wheels. i'm trying to figure out what i can do with the wheels i have complete instead. the answer to that question is not simple because of the state all the pieces are in. i wish i had it in me to keep at this project and see it through, but even a shortcut version is going to a lot of work at this point.

i'm still undecided on a layout. putting the wheels in rows will require making a lot of middle/half wheel/connecting pieces. making more interconnecting cogs for one big slab will require more work than i even want to think about. there's no quick fix way out of this mess. 

what am i to do?

maybe i just set it aside until such a point in my life as i have the motivation and time to keep making it into something like i originally planned?

the only reason i'm even thinking about it is i'm a little "tired of pink" at the moment and needed a distraction.

i'm not truly tired of pink - just tired of blogging about it. the only thing i get done these days is a few more stitches on "pinky stinky" edna, which is turning this blog into a play-by-play in pink. who wants to keep reading that?

as wednesday approaches and i haven't done any new quilting, i think to myself, "i need to go quilt a little so i have something to post." this isn't very genuine, on the one hand. on the other, it's motivating me to keep the project moving forward, even a little bit at a time. there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

i've thought of doing something else, but i need to get the pink thread off the machine before i move on. i'm really making myself stick to these wips until i get them finished, which is great for finishes but makes for boring blogging.

this week i put the star points on the pieces above and attached the horizontal sashing strips to 3 of the 16 patches for row 4. it was actually a nice break from house design.

as i was leaving the room last night, i noticed this bit of silliness above. i put the same star points on two consecutive pieces. the set on the right is supposed to be bird points, like the cornerstone block under it. that's going to be some work for me. upicking coming right up!

"pinky stinky" strikes again, which is to say, "hydee messed up again." 

and somehow i still make quilts.

crew update 2026

size of my people in 2012

my family has always been a big part of my sewing life. i've included my children in my creative pursuits as much as possible, hoping to inspire their own creative journeys. when this blog started, there were six, and number seven showed up soon after. that was 15 years ago! my littles are all mostly full grown now. the babies around here these days are my grandchildren, which currently number three. i've updated this page every few years; to watch them grow visit the older posts (2012, 2014, 2021). let's see where they are in 2026.

d1, oldest daughter and child, 27

college grad in creative writing, married since the pandemic, sahm with three children affectionately referred to as "the babies" in our household. she's taken after my mother, marmee, and started sewing halloween costumes for her little people. most recently that was a cinderella dress and mouse ears. she has my old pink brother machine and has taken her sewing cabinet off my hands. one of her favorite projects is to make felt food for her children's play kitchen. we love these pieces!

grandson r, 3

likes to sew with granna when he's visiting. the bowl of sewing sweets helps. he pulls pins, snips some threads, runs the foot pedal, pushes cutting and needle buttons, and helps with handsewing. we are working on a quarter log cabin quilt together and made a pincushion for his mama for christmas.

granddaughter a, 2

started checking out what we're doing with pins this year. recently took an interest in helping me pull the needle when i handbind.

grandson t, 6 months

rolling everywhere, won't stay still on a quilt anymore. but does like to snuggle them. is mostly just very, very cute.

s1, older son, 25

college grad in biochemical engineering, working man, recovering patient. he's had serious health issues for about 4 years now, which peaked last spring. currently lives at home with us while he slowly adjusts to his new condition. creative pursuits: flower arranging for me and decorating his bedroom. he has an artistic side he's considered exploring again by taking up painting or pottery, but hasn't stepped into it yet. is the favorite of his niece, a.

d2, second daughter, 23

college grad in technical writing, just completed two years of language school in tokyo receiving her level two certification in japanese. while there she tried several creative experiences, including some fabric dying. she's returned to the nest as she plots her next move - more school or the workforce? creativity is mostly channeled through cooking at the moment. maybe we'll make that alice in wonderland quilt now she's pit-stopping at home for a minute. loves to hangout with the babies.

s2, younger son, 21

college student in finance/economics. creativity involves seeing how much volleyball time he can manage while maintaining grades.

d3, third daugther, 19

college student in creative writing. creative pursuit - writing.

d4, fourth daughter, 17

high school senior concurrently enrolled in college classes like physics 2 and calc 3. she made softies for the babies at christmas; all her own design, no pattern. draws and paints. likes to design personalized cards.

d5, youngest daughter, 14

high school freshman, rock climber. she's completed her first quilt and now helps me with projects beyond snipping things. i can trust her to piece and to press. she's my quiltcon buddy when it's in town. she loves sewing and crochet, which she taught herself. 

the mr, married 30 years

he's my financial backer and occasional quilt admirer. keeps me from falling too far down the rabbit hole of quilting when other things are going on.

still stinky pinky (ww2026.6)

are you "tired of pink?" if so, you'll want to skip this post! "pinky stinky edna" got a lot of work done on her this week. getting the pieces up on the design wall last week was quite useful and made assembly easy, at least until i made my slew of mistakes, but it made knowing where to put everything easy and was so helpful.

with the top row complete, i started working on the horizontal sashing pieces next. they needed the side star points added first. i got reacquainted with how to get the directional prints on the way i wanted them to be oriented, then added the 16-patch blocks.

i'm still making bonus mini hsts out of the little corner cut-offs. i'm still unsure what i'm doing with them, but i'm not wasting them! if i don't add them to the back of the quilt somewhere, i'll either make a feature patch out of them for a hazel-style improv quilt or make a small bean bag for the grans to play with. either way, i'm making them and putting them aside as i go.

i had an early walk with my seester, katee, who lives in the neighborhood, so the house was really quiet when i got home. i didn't want to do anything noisy (dishes) and didn't feel like starting house design work just yet, so i decided to put a few pieces together. once i had these two done, i decided to work on the rest of the row.

i'm having a little trouble with the V at the intersection of the star points, and i don't know why. this one turned out pretty well, but it's also puffy. i just don't know what i'm doing wrong, but i'm keeping at it and not worrying about little things like this too much.

there were some other problems with lining up of seams when i added the vertical sashings to the 16-patches that i did unpick and re-do. those were too glaringly off and did not align with my intergrity-but-not-perfectionist mentality, so i fixed them. 

 by the time the rest of the household was up and moving, i had the sashings complete and the first two rows of 16-patches attached together. it felt really good! the only "stinky" i had in that whole process was one set of misaligned seams i redid and my thread was being tricky. but overall, it was smooth sailing. 

after breakfast and a few other chores, i decided it was going to be a quilting day after all. i went back to the sewing room to proceed with the next set of sashings and row. that's when i realized i didn't put the star points on the bottoms of the vertical sashing pieces. oh, shoot. that definitely needed to be done. 

so i unpicked the rows a few inched past where the points needed to be added and got to work making star points on all the corners. it was more difficult wrangling the whole row around for each of those small seams than it was doing each block individually, but i managed.

i was quite relieved to have that done! i soothed myself with a mini strawberry ice cream cone from trader joe's. that was nice pick-me-up before i moved on the the next set of hotizontal sashings. 

i haven' t looked at the pattern in months. at this point, i just know how everything is supposed to go together and am making my way through it based on my guesses and experience. there might be a much more efficient way outlined in the pattern, but i haven't taken the time to look it up.

things just got stinkier from there: i put the wrong star points on a sashing set, i nicked the center of a star with my snips when cutting a stray thread, i had one sashing set cut too long and didn't realize it until after i put the points on, which then had to be redone also, and i had another block not line up with the 16-patches with had to be unpicked and corrected. 

i took deep breaths, kept calm and carried on: never give up, never surrender, keep making that quilt.

on sunday, i was on the phone with d3, who is out of state at university currently, for 3.5 hours, and part of that time i worked on "pinky stinky" to keep my hands busy while we chatted. i got row three assembled and row four's star points added to the pieces and some of it attached, but i'm waiting for d5 to finish the 16 patches before i can progress any further. she wants me to take her shopping, but i think she's going to have to do a few blocks for me first.

(the photo looks confusing because row three is layered over row two so i could fit more on the board, and that's hard to see in the photo.)

tip: directional prints on flip-and-stitch corners

there are lots of times when i want a directional print to be facing a certain direction when i'm making quilt blocks or components: hsts, flying geese, chevron blocks, economy block corners, snowball corners, diamond block corners (like wensleydale), and more. in the star cornerstones for "pinky stinky edna" i want the pieces in the star points to be going the same direction as the center block. this is completely personal preference in this case, but it's an effect i'm aiming for.

these corner triangles are made with the flip-and-stitch method where a smaller square is placed right sides together on the corner of the base, a diagonal seam is sewn to create a corner triangle, the excess of both fabrics is cut off 1/4" away from the seam, the new corner is flipped out to replace the part cut off, right side up, and is then pressed into place.

so how do i get the print going the same direction from each side of the star?

this is the square of the strawberry print i want to add to the bottom left corner of this two-strip sashing piece. the piece is vertical and i want the strawberries to run in the direction shown in the photo.

first, i identify the direction the piece should be facing and then the part i want to show in the corner. for this one, the part i want showing is turned in the bottom left as shown above.

if i fold the top right of the square under the bottom left corner, i can see how the shape will appear once sewn together, flipped down, and pressed into place. the bottom left corner my finger is on is the part i'll use to orient myself when putting the right sides of fabrics together for sewing the seam. 

when i turn the square over so right sides of fabrics are together, i want that bottom left corner to now be in the upper right corner. that same corner that was under my finger in the upper photo is now where my finger is pointing in this photo. no matter the orientation of the corner, the thing to remember is:

 the corner of the square that you want to be the finished corner piece of the triangle needs to be placed in the diagonally opposite corner when you have the square flipped for right sides together. 

so again, here that means the lower left corner (when the square is facing up and is in the direction you want the fabric to appear in) becomes the upper right corner when it's flipped over and the fabrics are right sides together.

when fabrics are right sides together, i mark the diagonal line i'm going to sew the seam on. don't forget to mark and sew the seam for the bonus left-over hst from the corner, too. 

once both seams are sewn and the corner cut off, the new corner piece if flipped out and pressed into place. and you can press open your bonus hst as well. 

voila!

i figure out these little tips for myself, often through trial-and-error, then i tend to forget them when i need them again. i'm going to start recording them and gather them together on a tips page for myself so i can remind myself what i've learned when i need it again. maybe it'll help someone else, too.