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squaring blocks
have completed my shoo fly blocks with fussy cut center. just spent a tedious couple of hours squaring them up. Yes I needed a bigger ruler. My question, is there any reason I can't cut a clear plastic template, mark the middle, and if it's heavy enough plastic use the rotary cutter, or mark and use the appropriate ruler and square up? staples seem to have all weights of clear plastic.
geraldine |
Or go to Lowes and have them cut you a piece of plexiglass the size you want and mark the center with a sharpie.
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There have been many post on here where people have went to their hardware stores and had plastic cut to do this same thing. Its normally plexiglass that is used. It is so cheap too.
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Welcome from Ontario, Canada. You can use a piece of clear plastic to mark the blocks and then use a regular rotary ruler and rotary cutter to trim the block. You can also sometimes get a place like Lowes to cut you a plexiglass glass square that you can use with your rotary cutter.
I would not recommend using a plastic square you made yourself for rotary cutting unless it is plexiglass. You will end up shaving some of the plastic away with your rotary cutter and ruin your block or cut yourself. When possible invest in a big rotary cutting square ruler. I use my 15 inch square all the time. |
I agree with all those that have said that the cost for professionally marketed rulers/shapes is in creating a precision edge. However, it is well known that using different brands of rulers on the same quilt can cause BIG problems because they may be off by as much as 1/8".
That said, in the "olden days", quiltmakers used to use cereal box templates, paper templates, or whatever they could get their hands on. It has been my experience that using thinner templates (without a ruler) usually results in the templates getting ruined pretty quickly. In addition, I found that trying to rotary cut with template plastic or something similar to that (even the thickest kind) tends to dull my rotary blade. What I do when I need a long line is I fold my fabric (remember that rotary blades can cut through multiple layers) and use my 18" ruler. For squaring blocks, I also make either a piece of tag board (for heavily appliqued blocks) or will iron together 2-3 layers of freezer paper & cut a template out of that, then iron that to my block. Because the freezer paper won't move, I can take my time moving the ruler bit by bit to get my block square. You can use dulled rotary blades to cut out the freezer paper to make that process faster. |
wow thanks everyone, just joined this a.m., so helpful
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I like Tartan also have a 15" square up block. I never make any blocks bigger than that. I prefer having all the lines to make sure everything is align correctly.
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I always use my 15" square except my latest project has larger blocks than 15". After struggling with my smaller rulers, I broke down and bought a bigger square. Glad I did but I can see the using it as often as the 15".
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Has anyone used Bloc Loc rulers to square up HST and HRT?
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Welcome to the board, Briskgo.....you will make many friends here!
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