squaring blocks
10-01-2014, 07:23 AM
#1
Junior Member
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Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: cave junction or
Posts: 256
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
geraldine
10-01-2014, 07:55 AM
#4
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 41,538
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 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.
10-01-2014, 08:09 AM
#5
Super Member
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Illinois
Posts: 2,140
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.
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.
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