Hey everyone! This week we’re squaring up the quilt blocks we’ve been making all year. Squaring up may seem like a tedious job, but when it comes to putting the quilt together later, you’ll be thankful you’ve taken this step first. I’m adding transcript of the video below to allow none English speakers to translate should they need to. The video is at the bottom of the page. A video providing steps to put the blocks together once they’re trimmed is on the way, I promise!
Transcript
Hey everyone. This week, we’re talking squaring up quilt blocks. This is a really important step in any quilt where the seams must meet in order for your quilt to look it’s best. If you’ve sewn all your seams exactly right, you may find there’s nothing, or very little to cut off in order to square your blocks, but it is still advantageous to do this. It’s more common for blocks to finish bigger rather than smaller than desired and if all your blocks are different sizes, they won’t sit together properly. The biggest cause of blocks being mishapen or completely different in size to what you expected, is your seam allowance. It’s important to use the seam allowance stated in patterns accurately.
So take a square ruler and place it in the centre of the block. You can either mark the area to be cut off, or simply cut through with a rotary cutter against the ruler. It’s important to use the correct size ruler else this gets little more complicated.
If you don’t have the correct size ruler, measure the block side to side and up and down. Find the centre. Then mark the correct width. So we want 12.5 inches. We half that to 6 and a quarter. Now mark from the centre out to 6 and a quarter in all directions. Draw lines where you marked, and then you can go ahead and cut. But I do urge you to create blocks to a size you have a ruler for. It makes it so simple and less likely you’ll make a mistake a cut one of your blocks too short.
If your blocks contain fabrics sewn together at 45 degree angles, use the angles on your ruler to ensure you’re cutting correctly!
For this video, I’m squaring up the blocks for my quilt series. If you’re making a quilt, it’s important not to trim blocks until you have them all made. By doing this, you can measure them all and locate the smallest. The others can then be trimmed to suit the smallest so they all match.
Hopefully that’s explained the process and enabled you to square up your quilt blocks easily.
Next time we’ll be joining the blocks together to form the quilt top! I love this part, when it goes right, because you can see how wonderful your quilt is going to look.
For now, thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time! Happy Sewing!
