Triangle this

Our block for the Paducah swap started out being a square in a square.  None of us has begun making the blocks (surprise...).  Today we changed it to a friendship star block.

Now, it is no secret that I am not a huge fan of triangles, but I am tolerating them more and more as I get older.  One way that I do them is to use paper templates such as these:

I am in no way taking credit for this idea, but would like to share it.  I drew out on graph paper 3-7/8th inch squares with a diagonal line and quarter inch dotted lines on either side.  You sew on the dotted line and cut on the solid lines.  Makes up some pretty nifty half square triangle blocks in a short amount of time.