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Handy Cutting Tips and Ruler Use

Darn! November is continuing to be a very cold month! It’s been feeling like January instead. Maybe January will feel like November? I can only hope!

I was cutting out a project earlier this week and thought about some tips I can share. It never hurts to brush up on the measuring and fabric cutting skills, right? I’ll share these tips in this post and hopefully what I share is helpful to you and makes your quilting experience more enjoyable! I’ll also throw in some ruler usage tips to make cutting and other tasks easier.

Tip#1 

That old adage of “measure twice, cut once” is true. I have cut strips before that I though were  2 1/2″ wide only to find I cut them 2 1/4″ wide because I was looking at the wrong line on my ruler! 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. I’ve done that too. I like rulers that have the numbers marked (instead of just having to look for a line) in the middle as well as on the ends so you can check your placement.

Notice on my Creative Grids ruler (my favorite brand), the numbers you want to use are the ones right side up and going right to left on the ruler. I like these markings because I do not have to depend solely on the lines.

Tip #2

To keep the ruler from shifting while you cut, use even pressure with your hand, not too heavy and not too light.  Also make sure your hand is in the center of the ruler. Even if your ruler has gripper dots on the underside (which the Creative Grid ruler does), it can still shift if you are not holding it down correctly. “Tent” your hand as shown in the photo below with your pinkie on the edge to keep the ruler from moving. If you place your hand flat on the ruler, you may inadvertently push the ruler forward. Tenting your hand makes the pressure your are exerting go down instead of forward.

When you are cutting a long strip, you may want to stop briefly and move your hand up the ruler so you can keep the pressure even through the entire cutting of the strip.

If you have trouble applying pressure with your hand alone, there’s some handy little tools that help you with that. Here is one such tool called the Little Gripper by The Gypsy Quilter.

Tip #3

Make sure your rotary cutter 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 this:

Not angled like this:

Tip #4:

Make sure your blade is sharp. It’s a good rule of thumb to replace your blade after cutting out a project. Now, if I’m cutting smaller table runner or mini wall hangings, I may cut out 3 or 4 of those before changing my blade. But, if I am cutting out a large quilt, I will change my blade when I am done with that. One way you can tell if your blade is dull is if there are “skips” in the cut you are making or if you have to press down harder than normal when cutting. If that happens, change your blade!

Ruler Tips:

  • While cutting out a project, it’s a good idea to use the same brand of ruler for all the pieces. Different brands of rulers can have lines of different thickness. Even if they are off by 1/16 of an inch, it could cause a problem when you are piecing. 

 

  • 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.

 

  • The 45 degree line comes in handy when you are trimming a half-square or quarter-square triangle square. Place the diagonal line on the diagonal seam of your square to guarantee that you are trimming the square evenly on all sides!
  • Finally, to quickly identify where to place your ruler, notice the lines between the inches are different lengths. Early on in my quilting 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 that both of those. This helps you find measurements like 2 3/8″ and 3 3/4″ quickly on the ruler.

So that’s it for this week. I hope you find this post informative! Leave me a comment on your cutting and ruler tips. We all learn something new every day! I will be drawing a winner from the comments to receive a Little Gripper tool! 

Drawing will be on Monday, 11/25 so you have time to enter! **We have a winner! Congrats, Joanna Perry!**

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

Fabric Cutting Tips – Accuracy and Safety!

These days because of the high cost of fabric, I am very careful when cutting it. That’s where accuracy comes in handy. You know the saying, measure twice, cut once. It’s actually a very good rule to remember. Another good practice it to cut the largest pieces from the fabric first and work your way down to the smallest pieces.

First things first: when you are ready to cut the fabric an important step is to have the right tools. Most quilt patterns today are written for rotary cutting, so I will focus on that for this post. You will need a self-healing mat, a rotary cutter and rulers.

My main focus is on safety. I’ve been the victim of a rotary cutting accident in the past and, believe me, it’s not fun. These tools are sharp because they are designed to cut through several layers of fabric, so they will definitely cut through you! A sharp blade helps with safety because it will run through the fabric smoothly. When you notice that you have to press down harder than normal for your blade to cut, that means the blade is dull. Time to replace it. Also, replace a blade with a nick in it immediately. Finally, never leave the blade open and use the lock button the cutter doesn’t accidentally open.

I also use a “klutz” glove and have rotary cutter safety shields on my rulers. These, of course, are optional but I would not work without them. The ruler guard is great because it will prevent the blade from hitting you if the cutter happens to skip over the ruler’s edge.

I even purchased extra of these safety shields (they only come in the 24” ruler size) and had my husband cut them down to fit my smaller rulers.

So, now that we have tools and safety covered, the next step in accurate cutting is squaring up your fabric. When fabric is rolled onto the bolt at the manufacturer, the lengthwise grain of the fabric most times ends up not being straight. So when you get your cut of fabric, you will need to square it up so strips that you cut from the fabric are not bent in the middle. Here is an example:

Notice how the strip on the left bends away from the line on the mat and the one on the right is straight? That’s why we square up!

Step 1: Press your fabric making sure to press out the crease from the fold.

Step 2: Line up the selvedge edges of your fabric:

If your fabric looks “wavy” (like the photo below) with the selvedges aligned, you need to shift the fabric, while keeping the selvedges lined up, so that it lays flat on the cutting mat. Don’t worry that the sides of the fabric don’t line up.

Step 3: Lay a ruler along the bottom edge lined up with the fold of the fabric. I use my small square for this.

Then lay your large ruler on the left side and butt it up against the small ruler, while holding the small ruler so it doesn’t shift.

Step 4: Remove the small ruler while keeping your hand on the large ruler to keep it from shifting. Align your rotary blade with the ruler’s edge and cut off the uneven edge of the fabric.

Now you have perfectly squared fabric! It’s ready for you to cut strips so you can cut the pieces needed for your project. If you are cutting a large amount of strips, you may have to re-square the fabric as it can shift slightly as you cut. If it looks to you like the fabric has shifted, perform the above steps again to re-square the fabric. This is one of the reasons why I like to purchase a little extra fabric when I buy. It gives me some breathing room in case I have to re-square my fabric or if I make a cutting error.

Hopefully, this cutting tutorial was informative! Whether you are an experienced quilter or a new one, it never hurts to refresh your memory from time to time!

Happy Quilting!
Deanne