What are we scared of?

What Was I Scared Of? from The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss is my absolute favorite picture book. It's got a pair of empty green pants that ride a bike and row a boat...and prickly black Brickel bushes and the most amazing color combination. I think I might need an applique quilt based on this book...

 

Lots of quilters seem to be scared of half square triangles and willing to make all sorts of contortions to avoid those scary bias edges.

I'm working on a tutorial with about a hundred half-square triangles and I just know that someone is going to scold me for the way I do them -- the same way I've been scolded in the past for cutting individual squares instead of using quick strip piecing methods.

I cut the squares because I don't want the prints falling in the same combination every time.  And I do my triangles the way I do them because I think it's easier to make the half square triangle units that way.

I cut squares in half to make two triangles and sew the triangles together. For me, that's a lot faster  than drawing a line from corner to corner of each square, then sewing a quarter inch on each side of the line, then cutting. (I've done it that way, too.)

Back in high school Home Ec, I made a matching blouse and skirt out of red and black plaid cotton. The teacher suggested that the square patch pockets would look nicer if I cut them on the bias. So I did. She did warn me to watch out for the stretchy edges, but they were no big deal.

After a gathered skirt with a button and zipper, and the yoke and collar and more buttons on the blouse -- not to mention matching plaids! -- those bias edges weren't that scary. Maybe that's because I'd never a bunch of warnings about bias edges.

How do you make your half square triangles?  Have you tried just cutting them and sewing them together?