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Tips for Accurate Piecing

Hi quilters! This week, I want to cover all the things that go into accurate piecing. You would be surprised what can contribute to your unit or block not measuring accurately when you are finished piecing. That is the most frustrating thing after you have worked really hard on it! I have also received a request from a reader to cover how to get an accurate 1/4″ seam if you don’t have a 1/4″ foot for your machine. So let’s get started with all the tips I think are important for accuracy.

Tip #1 – Cutting Your Pieces

Yes, you saw that right. Accurate piecing starts with accurate cutting! I you are cutting a lot of strips for a project and they all need to be the same width, my first recommendation is to use the same ruler or rulers from the same company. I like Creative Grid rulers.

These rulers have really clear markings in both directions so no matter which side of the ruler you are using, you can find the measurement you want. They also have a slip resistant back.

If you have to cut a lot of strips the same width, I recommend using painter’s tape to mark the width on your ruler for a guide. That way if you are cutting a lot of 2 1/2″ strips, you won’t accidentally cut one 2 1/4″.

See how that bright line of tape makes it easier to find your mark? Also, painter’s tape will not leave any residue on your ruler. We all know how expensive fabric is… so keeping cutting mistakes to a minimum is a good thing.

Finally, make sure you are using your rotary cutter correctly to get an accurate strip. The photos below illustrate the difference. If you hold it wrong like in the photo on the left, you will end up with a strip not measuring correctly. And you may also have a cutting accident.

 

Tip #2 – Always Pin!

I know you are tempted to stitch together two small pieces without using pins. However, it’s important to pin to keep the fabric pieces from shifting. One little shift by the top or bottom piece while it is feeding through your machine can cause the unit to not measure correctly because your seam won’t be accurate.

Even if you are chain piecing, it only takes a few seconds to line up raw edges and quickly pin pieces. It’s better than having to “un-sew” a whole stack of units!

Tip #3 – Use an Accurate 1/4″ Seam Allowance

This is an important step in accurate piecing.  I recommend a 1/4″ quilting foot for your machine, like mine below:

If you have this foot, it’s still a good idea to test it. To do this, take 2 scrap pieces of fabric and stitch them together. When stitching, the edge of the 1/4″ foot should line up with the raw edge of the pieces you are stitching. Once you’ve stitched the pieces, use a ruler (as shown below) to measure the seam to determine if your 1/4″ foot is accurate.

If it measures correctly, great! If it does not OR you do not have a 1/4″ foot, you can actually use markings on your machine’s throat plate or use tape to mark where you should line up your piece for a 1/4″ seam. The following steps will show how to do this.

Throat Plate Option: Check to see if your machine’s throat plate has a 1/4″ mark like mine (below left). To use this marking, you line up the edge of your fabric with the 1/4″ mark when stitching. After the seam is stitched, measure it like I showed above to determine accuracy.

Measuring & Taping Option: If you have no markings on your throat plate, here are the steps for measuring with a tape measure and marking with a piece of painter’s tape on your machine to indicate the 1/4″ point. Start by laying the measuring tape under your needle at the “0” line.

This will also help you to measure if the marking on your throat plate is accurate if you have one. (See my little white arrow in the photo above.) Lower the needle by hand to make sure the needle matches up with the “0” line. Then, find the 1/4″ line on the measuring tape. Use this as a guide to place a piece of tape (or determine the accuracy of the mark) on your throat plate.

When stitching a seam, you can now line up the edge of your fabric with the edge of the tape to give you an accurate 1/4″ seam. Once again, use scrap fabric to test your seam. Hopefully by following one of these tips above, you will get an accurate seam.

Tip #4 – Measure, Measure, Measure!

Now that you are stitching with an accurate seam, the final step in having your blocks measure accurately is to measure each unit as you stitch it to make sure it’s the correct size before continuing. For example, if I am making several flying geese units for a block and they need to measure 2 x 3 1/2″ for the block to come out the correct size, I measure all the geese units for the block (like below). That way, when I am ready to piece the block, I know all the geese units measure accurately. That, along with accurate 1/4″ seams guarantee my blocks will be the right size!

So that’s it! These are what I think are the most important tips to help you piece your units or blocks so they measure the size they should be. If you start by cutting your pieces accurately and then use an accurate 1/4″ seam while stitching them, you are guaranteed to get accurate sized units. Because of that, your blocks and ultimately your quilt will go together smoothly! No headaches matching up seams or creating the intended design.

Comment or ask questions about accurate piecing and I will enter you into a drawing for my pattern, Twinkle Twinkle:

This pattern will give you a lot of practice with accurate piecing with all of those flying geese units that make up the stars and borders! The drawing will be on Monday, August 9th.

Happy Quilting!
Deanne

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