Corner Beam Fundamental Tool

[Music] hi everybody Deb Tucker here from studio 180 design we're gonna talk in this video today about one of our fundamental tools that we call the corner bean now the corner being tool is going to create basic units that are squares the squares have two scenes in them the seams go from the corner to the center from the corner to the center which is why the tool got the name Corner bean looks like a beam of light coming out of the corner what you may notice is that the corner beam tool and the Vblock tool have the same angle at the edges and one of the reasons it has the same angle is that the side triangles on the corner beam the side triangle there and the side triangle on the Vblock have the same angle which is why the tools have the same angle they go from corner to Center on both but they create units that are very different the tools you'll notice also have icons on them that easily identify which tool is for which unit so today we're going to talk about the corner beam when we do the corner beam unit the first decision of course was the size that we need to make you'll go to the information section of the tool for that what you need to do if I'm making a three inch finished unit that information will tell me what I need to cut it says I need to cut strips and I need to cut squares that are four inches now I'll use squares when I'm cutting the center beam and I'm gonna use strips when I'm cutting those side triangles let's talk about them one at a time I for the unit that I'm making on the table those Center beams are made from four inch squares on the tool there are two dashed lines that you need to pay attention to when you're cutting that Center beam there's a simple dashed line going north and south it says right on it Center beam trim number one there's another angled dash line it's dashed and dots but it says right on it Center beam trim number two those are the only two lines that you need to look at when you are cutting that Center beam I've got my four inch square that I was instructed to cut to cut that Center beam and you can cut as many layers as you feel comfortable cutting through but I'm gonna put that first Center beam trim number one guideline against the edge of my squares make my cut that's gonna give me the first edge of my Center beam to get the next edge of the center beam simply take your ruler I do a little rotation from the tip and line up that dashed and dotted line with the edge that I just cut that's the line that says Center beam trim number two line that up with what you've just cut make your next angled cut and what you have is that Center beam section that's exactly well it's got exactly the right angle but it's a little bit bigger than it needs to be that's because it I'm gonna piece my units slightly bigger and then trim them down to size you'll notice also that we have two little cutaway triangles I'm gonna put those off to the side we'll come back and talk about those later in the video now to create the side triangles I'm going to use my four inch strips that four inch strip needs to be placed either right side together or wrong side together because my unit has mirror those side triangles are mirror images of each other so the strip is placed in my case wrong side together I've cleaned up the edge on the tool what I'm gonna look at is a single broad heavy line that's labeled side triangle trim number one that's the line that I'm going to position against the raw edges of my strip make my angled cut and you can see what I'm going to get once I make that first cut or side triangles slightly bigger than they need to be to get the next pair of side triangles out of the strip I just cut along the angled edge I'm gonna pick up my corner beam tool rotate it and start looking for a couple of other placement guidelines I'm gonna put my second trim line at the base of the strip and I'm going to look at the angled line here that shares a job it's a seam placement line but it's also side triangle number two guideline line that right up with what I've just cut cut again and I will have my next pair of side triangles for my corner beam unit now right handers you'll put your strip horizontal on your mat when you're trimming if you happen to be my strips pretty short right now but if you happen to be left-handed simply rotate your strip so that is going vertical on your mat you'll be able to line up that same broad line on the edge of your strip use your cutter and cut across in a comfortable manner all those instructions are covered step-by-step in the instructions that come along with your tool and one you're done what you're going to end up with are bunches of Center beams and bunches of side triangles I always take those pieces and lay them out exactly how I want them to look before I start to sew because it's very easy to take those pieces and end up putting them on there so they're not making a square they're making it kind of looks like a windy thing I don't know but I I that's not what I want I know what I want is something that went up everything is sewn is going to end up giving me a square when I do my stitching I like to do my stitching from the broad and toward the point so for my first round of stitching I would stack up all of my Center beams I'd stack up my side triangles flip them over so that their raw edges let's get the other one out from underneath them so that the raw edges are even and I chain piece those one behind the other behind the other from the broad end toward the pointy end take the whole piece chain to my ironing board I like to press my seams going toward the side triangles that way it keeps it away from that pointy section there once I've stitched and pressed the first side triangle into place I'm going to position the next side triangle raw edge the nice thing about the the having the side pieces and having the center pieces cut slightly oversized is you don't have to do a lot of precision placement all you have to do is line up those riders when you're stitching stitch them quickly take them through the ironing board give them another press you are going to end up with corner beam units and they may not always look very pretty they might have a bit of fabric hanging over here they may not be lined up here but that's all okay because the next thing and the last thing that we're going to do is use the seam placement guidelines on our ruler and trim them down to size now you will always trim the pointy end first if you happen to be left-handed put that pointy end in the upper left hand corner and you'll be able to take and comfortably place those seam placement guidelines on the seam trim up the left and across the top and if you're right-handed rotate the block so that the pointy end is in the upper right hand corner position and line up those seam placement guidelines on the ruler there's two of them with the scenes that you've sewn clean up the corner it's going to now be nice and square all the riffraff and all the unevenness is gone rotate the unit around line up your cleanup guidelines I'm making a 3 inch block so I'm trimming this to three and a half by three and a half those are the guidelines that are lining up on the edges so that when I trim and when I trim I am gonna have a perfect square that has the seams going exactly where I want them to go so that if I put them together with any other corner beam unit they're gonna make meet and they're all gonna match that's the fun thing about making these fundamental units oversized and trimming him down now I did say it at the beginning of this that I was going to talk about those cutaway triangles remember when we cut that Center beam we had a couple of triangles that we cut away when we cut that Center beam you can take these side triangles layer them together now you do have really actually have a couple options if you don't want to do anything with them you can just throw them away if you want to or you can give them away but if you'd like you can actually use them you can take those side triangles layer them one on top of the other take your same corner beam tool use that broad line up against the edge and you can trim those cutaway triangles down to make additional side triangles you can use them to create smaller corner beam units you can use those side of triangles to create smaller V block units because remember at the beginning we talked about those side triangles being the same or you can take those side triangles and team them up with additional side triangles and make smaller what we call split Rex units and trim those down to size as well so think about adding the corner beam tool to your bag of tricks it's going to allow you to make some fun blocks some that might be pretty easy this is an example of a block that uses nothing but that corner beam unit but that corner beam unit can also be teamed up with other traditional units we have four of those corner beam units in the corners we have the hourglass units here that make our traditional Ohio star block and a square squared block in the center or unit in the center and you can also use that corner beam to create the tips of those leaves that we like to make so much the quilt that you see behind me is actually one of the patterns that we have written for this tool it's called North Star this is a nice example of using the cutaways all of these smaller or the medium-sized corner beam units the cutaways were used when I created the smaller stars that go around the outside edge so think about putting the corner beam into your tool box if you you can find it at your local quilt shop and if you can't find it there come visit our web store you can pick one up directly from us and why are you there you might want to think about watching some of the other videos that we have on some of our other and signing up for our newsletter thanks and enjoy you

Channel: Deb Tucker's Studio 180 Design

Views: 53,213

Rating: 4.9062958 out of 5

Keywords: Deb tucker, studio180, tucker trimmer, wing clipper, square squared, V block, corner beam, spotlight, hunter's star, hunters star, split rects, quilt, rapid fire, Lemoyne, Lemoyne star, sidekick, high/low, fussy cut, shaded four patch, migrating geese, flying geese, little houses, pickets, quickets

Id: 7Myn-ijuO2U

Length: 11min 35sec (695 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 23 2013