I know there are many posts about this and I just read them but I think my brain has gone on vacation. My block needs to be squared to 13.5". I have a 15" square ruler. I can't remember where to put my ruler so the part that needs to be trimmed is sticking out so I can trim it. Please help, this is driving me crazy.

The 6 3/4" lines would be half of 13.5" :D:D:D

Thanks Amma but what i want to know is on your square ruler there is the 1/1 corner, where do you put that corner? If I put it in lower left corner, all my fabric is under the ruler, if I put it in the upper right corner the only fabric to trim is on the right side and not on bottom. I've done this before and I don't know why I'm so confused about this.

You can only square up two sides at a time. I move the ruler around until I get it where I want it and then trim two sides, move the block around so that I can get at the other two.

Let the side of the ruler that measures more than 13 1/2 hang over the left side of the block.

Quilter 2 did you gety the information you need?.

I get so frustrated when I know I know how to do it but I can't make it work!

I hope you are past this now. If not please ask more questions.

Someone ask Rhonda or someone to do a tuturiol on this. I am not good at this either.

I second the motion for a tutorial on this. Lots of pictures with it would be a great help!

C'mon quilters--you KNOW that one of you can do this for those of us who are struggling! (Does that sound pathetic enough??)

Sue

Seems to me that you need to cut off a total of 1 1/2 inches in 2 adjacent sides to make the 15" a 13 1/2" right?

That would mean that you have to either cut 3/4 of an inch off all four sides, or 1 1/2" on two adjacent sides.

Am I thinking right?

Put the square up on to block and just pin where you think you need to cut before you do the actual cutting and measure. That should tell you if your right before making a mistake.

I third the motion!!! This is a step that I am lazy about and I know my finished work would look nicer if I took the time to learn how to do this properly. Thanks!

I'll "fourth" the request for an easy tutorial on this. It's one of my pet-peeve areas when piecing. I just can't seem to get the hang of it, and end up cutting wrong when I'm trying to make sure my 'center' stays in the 'center' and doesn't end up too far to one side of the block. It just doesn't seem intuitive enough.