Cutting Basic Squares, Triangles and Diamonds with Liza Lucy | Creativebug

[Music] every patchwork patterns going to tell you what size to cut your patches we're going to start with basic squares because everything you do is going to be a variation on that I have prepared this fabric by pressing it flat it's my favorite size 1/2 yard I will fold it now it's 2 layers to make it into 4 layers I never cut more than 4 layers at a time this is a rotary cutter it's to be respected it is nothing more than a round razor blade and can do a lot of damage it's also a great tool this one opens by pulling down on one side exposing the razor blade many others operate differently but essentially they're all the same I tell my students that you may not put this down after using until it is closed leaving it open on your table is a scary thing to do so we're going to cut this half yard it's now 4 layers thick and the first thing that needs to go is the selvage that's the edge of the fabric that is unusable what you do is take your measuring tool and put it on top of the fabric that you do want to keep not the part that you're going to cut away now the best way to cut the selvage off is to have it on my right side for people who are left-handed it will be the opposite so I turn my work around so that the part that I'm going to cut away is on my right side you'll notice that I don't have the fabric lined up with the mat and the ruler and that's because you only need to use one of the measuring tools so I'm going to put my ruler so that there's a straight line right on the fold and then I'm going to open my blade and push the blade away from me keeping my fingers safely away from the cutting edge and it's gone and I close the blade I'm leaving the ruler on the fabric and turning it back around the way I started we're pretending that the pattern we're making today tells us to cut a three and a half inch patch that will include the seam allowance the instructions when they say cut three and a half inches really mean cut three and a half inches so I'm going to move the ruler one two three and a half inches so that the three and a half inch mark lines up with the left-hand side I'm going to cut away from myself and remove the fabric that we're not going to use we're now going to cut this into three and a half inch squares I'm moving my ruler over lining up this left-hand edge and cutting away the uneven edge and it's gone I'm now going to move my mat again without touching my ruler as it stabilizes the fabric find three and a half inches this way line it up and I've got a three and a half inch square in fact I have four of them and they're identical I have already cut the squares and I want to show you how to cut a three and a half inch diamond so I've prepared another three and a half inch strip that I cut the same as I did before and I'm going to switch rulers this is the 60-degree ruler and it's marked similarly harder to see because the numbers are black and I'm putting it on the three and a half inch mark on the bottom cutting away an edge and that's now gone and now I'm taking it and putting the three and a half inch line right on the bottom and lining up so that the edge of the ruler hits this point and I'm cutting again and now I have four identical 60-degree diamonds this shape this diamond is commonly used in tumbling blocks patterns also Kaif and I tend to use diamonds quite a lot we do a lot of quilts with just diamond shapes that repeat across rows and I think they're very effective I'm going to show you a couple of other usual cuts that are made from squares you all know this is a square and that is probably ninety percent of what you're going to use when you make quilts the other shape that is commonly used is a triangle and to make a half square triangle you cut a square in half now I've marked this with a dark pencil line so you can see how you would cut this what you do is you take your ruler on the 45-degree line put it in one corner line it up and then you cut from corner to corner making to half square triangles you will use a lot of these the last thing that you will use in most of your quilts is the quarter-square triangle cutting a square into quarters again you place your ruler from corner to corner cutting once and then very carefully without touching the fabric you cut in the opposite way corner to corner and the result is four quarter square triangles you're going to find on the market a lot of gimmicks and gizmos to make this easier honestly I think this is the easiest way it's the most precise way for me and I still haven't found anybody can do it quicker than I do so I recommend doing this the old-fashioned way just the way I showed you [Music] you

Channel: Creativebug Studios

Views: 30,179

Rating: 4.843318 out of 5

Keywords: creativebug, liza lucy, quilting, rotary cutter, sewing, fabric, scissors, Creativebug, Creative Bug, Creativebug.com, Creativebug tutorials, Basic, Squares, Triangles, Diamonds, Cutting Basic Squares, Triangles and Diamonds, Liza Lucy

Id: w2GnRGBbzvw

Length: 7min 1sec (421 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 23 2014