Diamond Rects Fundamental Tool

you hi everybody def chopper from Studio 180 design I'm here today on talk to you in this video about making what we call diamond directs now the diamond rax is basically a rectangle that has a diamond in the middle of it when you see this shape most people think about making or having to make this unit when they make storm at sea blocks when you look at a storm at sea block what you're see basically are squares in the corner a square in the middle that has a square inside of a square and then you have these rectangles with the diamonds in them this would be the simplest version of a storm at sea block if you saw it in any book or pattern or magazine there are lots of other versions that you may see if you take a minute to look online you might see some storm at sea blocks that go a step further and actually take those blank corners and put squares on points out of those there are other ones that go even a little further where the center has a square inside of a square inside of a square and then if you've got a full-blown hurricane going on what you're going to have are these type of blocks in the corner as well but what you're going to notice is that no matter what type of storm at sea block you are going to make or what you're going to make those diamond rectangles always stay the same and so that's what we're going to deal with today the diamond grex tool like all of my tools is designed to work with multiple sizes it's designed so that you can make the shape bigger than it needs to be and then trim it down for high precision at the end and I'm going to walk you through the steps of how the tool works my tool like all the other tools the first thing you want to do is determine what size unit you want to make the tool that I've developed the diamond Rex tool actually does five different sizes starting at one inch by two inch and it goes all the way up to five eighths by ten inch so you have choices going to choose for our video today to work with the middle-sized which is a three inch by six inch rectangle with the diamonds in the middle the first step in the process is going to be to cut the shapes that you need to build the block for the diamond that goes in the middle what you're going to do is you're going to be using the angled edge of the ruler this angled edge of the ruler when you look at this what you're going to see is that there are a series of window templates here on the edges that are going to precisely cut that diamond shape along with that you're going to see there's some information here that gives you a suggested strip size for you to be able to do that so if I look down and find my three inch by six inch center diamond note on my ruler it will say to start with strips that are three and a quarter inches wide now those strips all the strips that you that I have you cut or slightly bigger than they need to be so to get going to cut those Center diamonds I'm right-handed so I'm going to place my strips this way and I'm going to cut from left to right but what I'll do is take my strips that I cut three and a quarter inches and then position the template guidelines on the ruler lining up the bottom edge with the raw edge of the strip make sure that when I make the cut this this angle right here is going to be held within the strip's hold that down tightly cut up again it's wider than it needs to be so not a lot not only do you have to make the angle cut you're also going to have to make the cut across the top edge for that first Center diamond you it doesn't look like a diamond yet what I need to do is turn it around rotate it 180 degrees take the tool and realign the edges now the solid edges are the cut edges of that diamond you'll notice that there are dashed lines on that guide lines on the ruler as well the - guide lines or your future sewing line so if you're doing anything with fussy cutting you'll know exactly where your seams are going to go but now you'll have a pair of diamonds that are precisely the right size with all the seam allowances included after you've made that first cut for all the subsequent cuts you can just take that strip and work your way down with the template lining up the bottom and the edge with that you've already trimmed and making the next cut don't forget to cut across the top it's wider but you can see by what's left on the table here that it's not too much wider than what it needs to be so when you're done cutting your pieces you have diamonds then that are precision cut for the size unit that you decided that you would like to make I do want to take just a minute to talk to you about using directional fabric if you're going to use the window template here one of the nice things about having a window template a guide that you can see all your shapes if you use stripes and you take the tool and put the tool on oftentimes what I'll do is open the stripe up so that all my stripes go the same way and I line up my guide lines I'm going to be able to trim this and end up with a shape that looks like this where the directions the directions on the diamonds are the same as the directions on your stripe but maybe that's not what you want one of the benefits of having a window template is that you can use that directional fabric you can lay it out on your cutting mat determine that you want the yellow to be right in the middle and line up your pieces and cut your diamonds so that all of your diamonds have that same look across the board this is how I would put diamonds maybe in one point or another where the greens on one side and the purples on the other or you can arrange them so that you have diamonds there where your two Purple's bump together but what I would try to avoid and once you probably would too is having three of them going one way and one the other and I'll think about it that's that's one of the things that you want to keep in mind what window templates allow you to do some interesting things with those diamond centers now once you've cut the diamond centers the next step in the process is to cut the the triangles that are going to be on those outside edges those side triangles are actually going to come from rectangles and the size of those rectangles if you look on this section of the tool and you'll find the size that you're making a three by six inch unit the size of the rectangles that I suggest that you cut are listed right there on the ruler you'll need for each diamond you are going to need two rectangles and the two rectangles before you cut them for the trying into the triangles need to be placed so that they are either right side or wrong side together because you need mirror image triangles in order to be able to make this happen so you've looked at the two the ruler determine the size of the rectangles made sure that you have a pair of them and that they're aligned right or wrong sides together the next step then is to look at your tool and see that there's a second window template there there's a window template that fits right into the corner of your rectangle so that when you cut you are now going to have oversized side triangles to place onto your diamond one pair will go on this side and one pair will go on this side and this is what I do now after I've cut them I go to my sewing machine and I set them out just like this and you might be tempted to skip this step but word to the wise don't it is way too easy to take these pieces and end up putting them on there like this and you will most certainly not be happy with the results so I take my pieces once they're cut the diamonds and the side triangles to my sewing machine set them up just like this and then would position them two at a time and sew them on the edges the one thing that I like to do when I when I do my sewing on these pieces first of all I like to sew with the diamond on top that's my precision cut piece so I want to make sure the diamonds on top but the other thing that I want to do when I layer them and position them together is may the pointy end of the diamond be a little bit closer to that end of the triangle than this rather than splitting it or finding and seeing equal distance here and here move that pointy end of the diamond very closed to this a little play here is going to make a world of difference what I'm going to suggest to you is once you've cut a couple of these cut a couple of extras and do some stitching to determine with it doesn't have to be a big plus but you'll find that little bit of a nudge in that direction is going to give you more fabric on all the edges to trim down at the end so I would put the diamond on top make sure that the point is nudged up toward that end of the triangle and take those pieces stitching them together the two opposite sides again stitching with the diamond on top when I'm done with the stitching I would go to my iron and I would press I generally like to press the seams away from the diamond Center once I've got those first two pieces pressed come back and again take a minute to reposition those second triangles because you could still get one turned around and you're not going to be happy if you do this but lay them up raw edge storage that's about the only thing you have to worry about doing on that and again kind of making small adjustments on those on the positioning once they're stitched go to the iron set the seams press them out in this direction and what you're going to find is that you will have pieces now that are probably not as pretty as you would like and that's okay you see that how there's a bowing that goes on on this one this one they're not quite lined up but it's okay the benefit of the diamond rex tool is that you are now going to be able to take those slightly wonky units and trim them down to the perfect size for you to use in your project we'll take this one that's got a kind of a little bit of a bow going on to it to do the trimming and I should talk about doing this right and left handed right handers you'll set the piece up vertically this so that you can line it up and you'll be able to trim this way a left-hander would rotate the unit so that they could cut and line up the pieces and cut this way now I'm right-handed so I'm going to set it up like this and what I'm looking at on the tool I'm looking at the X's for the size of the shape that I'm making I'm making a three inch by six inch so if I find the X that has three by six three by six and I follow it around there are four X's and there's a dotted line those are the guidelines and those are the X's that I am going to place directly on top of my seam lines for my trim so I'm placing the X's here nope so I'm going to nudge that one on the bottom just a little bit more and I'm going to fiddle the one at the top just a little more when I trim up and trim across the corner is perfectly clean very square and the seams are exactly a quarter of an inch from the edge lift the ruler rotate the unit 180 degrees when you go to do the second trim what you'll do is you'll look at those same X's but you are also going to pay attention to the to clean up lines at the three and a half by six and a half inch measurement increment so that you know that your piece is now perfectly sized the seams are all a quarter of an inch from the edge and when I go to sew every single one of these is perfect so it's as simple as that and I want to encourage you when you look at this shape most of us do we look at this and we think yep this is a great shape for making storm at sea but think about this for other other design plate you can take these shapes these diamond rectangles and you can place them edge to edge to edge to make a border that looks like this you can also take these diamond shapes and think about putting them like this well I've got a sample right over here let me show you this border that is made this is the 4 inch by 8 inch size look how pretty that is that would that would highlight any quilt that you make in those colors to have a border on that looks like this some of the other things you can do with this if you look at the quilt behind me you'll see that there are four of these shapes that surround a square in the middle and that's what makes the block in this pattern that we call sea glass I've got a couple other examples here that I'd like to show you to kit for you to think about for future projects this is the smallest size storm at sea block that we can make with our tool these are made with the 1 inch by 2 inch increments and my little tiny 1 inch squares in the corners this is one that's made from scraps and instead of just a simple square that's in the middle there's one of our four inch Lemoine stars in the middle I'm going to show you one other thing this was recently published in fonts and Porter quickly quilting magazine and this is actually a table runner project that was made from two and a half inch strips that's the suggested strip size that I make from my 2 inch by 4 inch diamond rec unit so I was able to get seven Diamond Rex and six two and a half inch squares and as simple as that I've got a table runner so think about adding the diamond Rex tool to your tool box it's a great shape I'm sure there's lots of creative things you can do with it you can pick up that tool at any of your local quilt shops or you can order it directly from us and I hope you have lots of fun adding this great unit that we may've avoided in the past to your bag of tricks

Channel: Deb Tucker's Studio 180 Design

Views: 56,952

Rating: 4.9347825 out of 5

Keywords: Deb Tucker, Studio 180, hunters star, hunter's star, rapid fire, Lemoyne star, tucker trimmer, wing clipper, square squared, square 2, v block, corner beam, spotlight, split rects, diamond rects, high/low, sidekick, liberty star, blazing Lemoyne, fussy cut, strip pieced migrating geese, shaded four patch, shaded 4 patch, pickets, quickets, sliver

Id: F9hiTQ0v6Gk

Length: 14min 57sec (897 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 09 2014