Rose Marie

I have the ruler and book but just dont use it. Have to learn all over every time and it does waste fabric.

If you use a center sq that is cut at 4 3/4 in then use two 4 in sqs cut on the diagional. Press the center sq in half both ways so you have a line to line up the point of the triangles to. Sew on triangles then sq up to 6 1/2 inchs. This fits into a 12 in sq very nicely.

butterflywing

what are you squaring up to 6.5"? if you cut and fold and attach, it makes your 12" square in square. i don't get the 6.5" part.

mpspeedy

Hi,

Ihave the ruler and an additional one that makes it possible to make bigger squares. There are ways to use it that don't waste so much fabric. I have two quilts that I used that method on that turned out very well. One of my quilts had blocks made on my embroidery machine. Since it only makes a 4" motif I enlarged the blocks by setting them on point. It does leave you with lots of bias edges but you can work with them if you starch the fabric first. I am not the world's greatest piecer but I had few problems with it. It has markings for 60 and 90 degree angles. I get the two of them mixed up occasionlly. I think it was worth the money.

emmy

To get to Anita Solomon's demos on Simply Quilts:
http://www.makeitsimpler.com/homepage2.html
and click on Watch Anita on Simply Quilts.
You can also find some here
http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/pac_ct..._leader/text/0,,DIY_26336_67830,00.html
Has anyone tried Anita's method? I have her first book and some paper, but that is as far as I've gone. She, also, is a member of Stashbusters. There is a thread by her regarding square in a square on the site.
Mary Ellen

Cathe

Patrice is right all around! My biggest problem is the bias edges. I don't care to use starch or glue or any other chemicals on my quilts, but the bias edges are just a bad idea. It's just as easy to use other techniques that don't cause this situation.

We had a lady come and teach this class when I was working at an LQS. I didn't think it was worth the money.

Cathe

http://www.hgtv.com/videos/super-fas...ting/4431.html

THIS is WAY COOL! I am going up to my sewing room now to do this. :lol:

butterflywing

i can't use DYI network info. i have mac. incompatible.

Cathe

Okay - I did 20 blocks like that last night. It was easy to cut. I also used a soapstone pencil to mark the board. It comes off with a damp rag. I would like to sharpen my pencil better to get a finer line. I am also thinking that I could position the pattern so that I would be cutting on the lines on the mat. If I can get that to work, I will post a picture.

The blocks pieced up nicely. I sewed triangles on opposite sides of the square, pressed them outward and then sewed on the other two triangles. It really went very quickly. I am not sure if they are perfectly square (I was sewing pretty quickly and I was getting tired,) but I haven't measured them. I think that if you wanted a specific size of finished square, you would have to do some experimentation to determine the size of your initial squares.

I made some "fussy cut" - style blocks, and that was easy, too! I just centered the motif in the initial square.

butterflywing

cathe, so glad to hear that.

i was able to get THAT tute and i could see the potential.that teacher usually does pp but i can see the potential with this.

i don't know if you can use it for anything else, but who cares. you can stack so many it must go whizzing by. how many could you comfortably stack?

Cathe

That's totally a matter of personal preference. I can cut 8 comfortably and 12 if I concentrate on it. You can cut more if you use the 60 mm cutter, but I am too cheap to buy that and perfectly content with my 45 mm. Once you have all your 8" (or whatever) squares cut, it's easy to flop down a bunch of them and slice. even if you only wanted to do 2 or 4 at a time, it's still much faster than alternative methods.