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More Ruler and Cutting Tips for Accurate Piecing

Last week I touched briefly on rulers, including my tips on using the same brand when cutting out a project and how to keep the ruler in place. I have some more ruler tips for you this week along with a few more cutting tips. All this goes towards accurate piecing which I will also talk about this week. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced quilter, I think it’s always a good idea to get tips on accuracy when piecing your blocks and quilt tops. Let’s get started!

More Ruler & Cutting Tips

Tip #1: You can use the ruler to find the center of a piece of fabric or block by using the markings on the ruler. Those intersecting white lines and the circle where they meet is the exact center of the ruler. This comes in handy when squaring up blocks or when you are fussy cutting a piece of fabric.

Tip #2: The 45 degree line comes in handy when you are trimming a half-square or quarter-square triangle square. Place the diagonal ruler line on the diagonal seam of your square to guarantee that you are trimming the square evenly on all sides.

Tip #3: To quickly identify where to place your ruler, notice the lines between the inches are different lengths. Early on in my quilting life I never paid attention to this. The 1/8″ lines are slightly shorter than the 1/4″ lines and the 1/2″ line is longer than both of those. This helps you find measurements like 2 3/8″ and 3 3/4″ quickly on the ruler. 

This is true for the Creative Grids rulers I use, but you’ll find similar features on other brands as well.

Tip #4: This ruler tip relates to cutting safety. If you have noticed, I have ruler guards (also known as safety shields) on my rulers. I had a rotary cutting accident several years ago when my cutter slid over the edge of the ruler and hit my finger. Not fun! Here’s what my rulers look like now:

You can find these safety shields made by Olipfa at Joanne Fabrics and some quilt shops. It only comes in one size, but it can be cut down to fit shorter rulers.

A safety feature I like about my Creative Grid rulers: they have gripper dots and strips embedded on the back for less slipping. No need to buy anything to add to the bottom of the ruler.

Tip #5: Everyone probably practices this one… remember that old adage “measure twice, cut once”? There are times that I have thought I was cutting a 2 1/2″ strip when I really had the ruler lined up for a 2 1/4″ cut … I was in a hurry and didn’t check!

Always line up the ruler with the edge of your fabric and double check that your ruler is placed correctly. Also make sure it’s not crooked. To help with that, use some tape on the ruler’s measurement line, especially if you are cutting a lot of strips.

Tip #6: Finally, make sure you are holding your rotary cutter correctly while cutting. Make sure it is straight and hugging the edge of your ruler all the way through the cut you are making. You want your rotary cutter straight like the photo on the left (below). If you angle it like the photo on the right (below), the blade of the rotary cutter can wander away from the edge of the ruler and your strip will be cut inaccurately. And, of course, always cut away from your body.

Piecing accuracy

Now we turn to accuracy in piecing. Part of the battle is won if you follow my cutting tips. This gives you accurately cut pieces to work with when it comes time to sew them together. If you are joining pieces that are not cut the right size, your block will not go together smoothly, with seams matching up, or will not measure the correct size. Here’s some piecing tips.

Tip #1: This one I hope all quilters are aware of… always make sure your 1/4″ seam is accurate. As you know, most quilt patterns require you to stitch pieces together with a 1/4″ seam. It’s always a good idea to test your seam allowance even if you have a 1/4″ foot. Thread thickness and needle position can effect your seam. So, for example, if you are starting a new project with some different thread than you’ve used in the past, check your seam allowance by sewing together two fabric scraps and then measuring the seam:

Tip #2: If you don’t have a 1/4″ foot, most machines have a marking on the throat plate that indicates wear to line up the edge of your fabric pieces for an accurate seam. 

If you have this type of lined throat plate, you can use it, but I recommend testing it like above before you depend on it.

Tip #3: Alway pin in place the pieces you are stitching together. I know… it takes more time to do that. But, it takes a lot of time to “un-sew” too!

Pinning, no matter how small the seam, keeps the pieces to be joined from shifting while being fed through the machine. Also if you need to line up seams, pinning is the only way you can guarantee they won’t shift away from each other while stitching.

Tip #4: Measure units as you go so you won’t be frustrated when you are piecing the final block together. For example, if you are piecing a star block that is made up of squares and flying geese units, measure the geese units as you go to make sure they are the size they need to be for the block.

So that’s what I have on rulers, cutting tips, and accurate piecing. I’m sure I’ll think of other things for future posts. If you can think of other tips to share, feel free to do so in the comments. I will choose one of you from the comments as the winner of my new pattern, Star Trail!

The drawing will be on Monday, February 5th. Good luck! **We have a winner! Congrats, Mary W.!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

A Quilter’s Most Important Ingredient: Fabric!

Fabric is the most important ingredient when it comes to quilting. You can make a quilt without a pattern, but you can’t make a quilt without fabric. Since it’s the key ingredient to making quilt, I want to cover some of my favorite fabric tips this week.

Picking out Fabrics

Tip #1: When you go to the quilt shop for fabric, bring the pattern with you make sure to buy enough fabric. I typically tell quilters to buy around 1/8 yard more than stated on the pattern, especially if you are a pre-washer. This also gives you extra fabric to square up and account for cutting errors. Nothing is worse than running out of fabric and going back to the shop to find it’s sold out!

Tip #2: This kind of ties into the first tip. Before you go to the shop, pick out fabric you think you want to use in your quilt and take that with you to match with the additional fabrics you need. This helps you to avoid coming home to find out that the fabric you bought doesn’t mesh with the ones you already want to use.

Tip #3: Don’t expect to find the exact fabric that was used to make the quilt sample pictured on the pattern. Especially if it’s an older pattern. Here’s an example what you can do if you need to find similar fabric.

If this orange fabric in the above quilt is what I am trying to match, what I want to do is find an orange fabric that has a similar shade and scale of print. Here are 3 fabrics I have chosen:

Can you tell which one works the best? Yes, it’s the one on the far left. The print scale is similar to the orange used in the original quilt and it’s the closest in shade. Of course, the other orange fabrics would still make pretty blocks, but with those the quilt block would look more unlike the original.

Tip #4: Just as I have advised you to audition fabrics at home for a project, you can do the same at the quilt shop. At home I do this to make sure fabrics “play” well together:

You can do the same at the quilt shop by either stacking up bolts or looking for fat quarters cut from the bolts of fabric you like and stacking those together for your “audition”. Once you decide on which ones you like, you can grab the bolts and have the fabric cut for you. Since you auditioned these at the shop, you know they are the perfect for your quilt project when you return home.

After you Pick the Fabric

Tip #1: Whether you are a pre-washer or not, the first thing you want to do is to press your fabric prior to cutting. Pressing out creases and wrinkles with help give you more accurate cut pieces. Cutting unpressed fabric can result in strips and pieces that don’t measure correctly and will cause fabric waste.

Tip #2: Square your fabric. Always! Do not skip this step, especially if you are cutting long strips for strip sets or borders. Otherwise you will end up with a strip that looks like the one on the left.

Notice how that strip bows away from the line on the cutting mat. That shows that the fabric was not squared properly before cutting. If you are cutting a large amount of strips from a piece of fabric, you may have to re-square it after cutting several of them. Fabric can shift from the ruler movement or when you move it around on the cutting mat.

Tip #3: Read through your pattern completely and find all the cutting instructions for each piece of fabric if it’s not all up front on the first page. I recommend cutting out the entire quilt’s pieces before starting to sew so you know you have enough fabric. Once you have it all cut, organized and labeled, you can store the pieces in the order you will need them. 

I store my projects with the pattern instructions in one of these art bins:

While you are Stitching Blocks

Tip #1: Be careful when sewing bias seams like when making half-square triangle (HST) squares and stitch & flip corners. If you have to remove stitches from a bias seam, you are more likely to stretch fabric out of shape and make that piece unusable.

For this reason, I like to use a scant 1/4″ seam when stitching HSTs so I can trim the resulting squares down to the correct size. And when I’m stitching stitch & flip corners, I make sure the resulting unit measures correctly before trimming any excess fabric from the seam allowance. See my mini video below:

Tip #2: Have block pieces laid out for easy chain stitching and make sure you are matching right sides together before feeding them through the machine. I have had many experiences ripping out stitches when I have not been paying attention!

Tip #3: Speaking of ripping out stitches, my way of doing it will minimize damage and distortion to your fabric. Whether you use a seam ripper or a small scissors (like I often do), snip a few threads on the seam line as shown on the left. Then you can gently pull apart the seam. This easily exposed the threads to cut so your sharp point of the seam ripper or scissors stays away from the fabric.

So that’s all I have for this week. Leave a comment below or ask any questions you may have. You will be entered into a drawing for my quilt pattern, Scrappy North Stars.

This will provide the opportunity to have a lot of fun with fabric! The drawing will be on Monday, October 9th. Good Luck! **We have a winner! Congrats, Judy!**

Happy Quilting,
Deanne

More Fabric Facts

Last week I talked about choosing background fabrics, pre-washing fabric and other fabric facts. This week, as we move onto actually using the fabrics, I’ll talk about things like fabric bias, cutting up fabrics for scrap quilting and squaring up fabrics. So, let’s get started.

Fabric Grain & Bias

The grain and bias of a piece of fabric determines how that fabric will perform in a quilt block or quilt border. The lengthwise grain of the fabric runs parallel to the selvage and is the most stable grain of the fabric.

 

The photo on the left shows the lengthwise grain ( the line I am pointing to). As you can see by the photo on the right, the fabric does not stretch a lot when pulled in this direction. It’s a good idea to cut in this direction for long pieces needed for the project like border strips, if possible.

The crosswise grain is a little less stable than the lengthwise grain. It’s perpendicular to the selvage. As you can see in the photo below, there is a little more stretch to the fabric in this direction.

Finally, the bias of the fabric is at the 45 degree angle from the selvage. This is where the fabric is the least stable.

As you can see in the photo on the right, the stretch in the fabric in this direction is more than the lengthwise and crosswise grains. Since it has a lot of stretch, binding for scalloped edge or circular quilts are often cut on the bias. Beware, any seam sewn on the bias (like in half-square triangle squares) must be handled with care when pressing or ripping out so the fabric is not stretched out of shape. Once fabric is stretched on the bias, it usually stays distorted.

Cutting Up Fabrics

As you are aware by now, my favorite type of quilts are scrap quilts. That’s why I like to cut up fabrics and have lots of smaller cuts in my stash. I mainly work with 1/2 yards, 1/4 yards or fat quarters, and 1/8 yards and fat eighths. Also strips…. lots and lots of strips! So here is my process:

Sometimes if I have a yard of fabric I bought a while back but do not think I can use it in a big chunk, I cut it up for scrap quilting. I also purposely buy a yard or more of fabric I like to do this.

First step, I lay out the yard of fabric and cut it into two half yards (each approx. 18 x 40-44″).

One of those half yards is folded up and put aside for storage. The other half yard is cut in half on the fold (center photo below) to make two fat quarters that are each approximately 18 x 20-22″ (last photo below) :

Like the half yard, I fold up one of the fat quarters for storage. The other fat quarter is folded lengthwise so it is 11 or 12″ x 18″ (photo on the left below). I cut it in half to make two fat eights (right, below).

One of the fat eights is stored with others fabric of the same size, rolled for storage instead of folding. That’s actually an easier way to store pieces of that size.

The other fat eight is cut into strips (below).

The photo below shows all the different sizes I now have in this color print. Two 1 1/2″ and two 2 1/2″ strips, a fat eight (rolled for easy storage), a fat quarter and a 1/2 yard. 

Doing this with most of my color prints helps me to build a large stash of fabric. I use tubs labeled with color and size to store these. Here’s an example below:

The fabrics I use for backgrounds generally remain in large chunks, like 1 and 2 yard chunks, unless I plan to make the backgrounds of my quilts scrappy like the color prints used.

Squaring Fabrics

Before you start cutting fabrics for storage (like above) or for the quilt you have chosen to make, you need to square it up. Squaring up your piece of fabric is a very important step that should not be skipped. Especially if you are cutting long strips that you will sub-cut into smaller pieces. If you start with a distorted strip, all the pieces you cut from that strip can be off in the measurements. This is even more important if you are making strip sets and sub-cutting those. You need to square up fabric because it’s often not square when you buy it off the bolt. What causes this is when fabric is rolled onto the bolt by the manufacturer, the selvage ends of the fabric can shift in the rolling process.

I made a mini video tutorial on how to square up fabric. I think this will give you a good idea of what you need to do with each fabric you want to cut. I recommend squaring it up after pre-washing fabric if you like to pre-wash your fabric.

So, that’s it for this week. Leave a comment below or ask any questions you may have and you will be entered into the drawing for my quilt pattern, Bountiful!

The drawing will be on Monday, February 14th. Good luck!***We have a winner! Congrats, Shirley!***

Happy Quilting!
Deanne