Understanding Quilt Rulers (for Beginning Quilters and Beyond!)

hey everyone its Lin from the stitch TV show I just wanted to show you really it's a question of I saw on the internet the other day someone was having a rough time reading their ruler and didn't know what the lines meant so I thought I would just do a quick overview of just explaining how to measure 5/8 you know sometimes if you're not used to reading a ruler than that can be frustrating so one of our patterns that we just did this is one of those color lectures that Pam and I did so this is the second block in the lecture called the cheese cake block and in it you need squares that are two and three eighths so and you also need one that is 2 and 5/8 so I thought I'd just go over how to cut one of those so anytime I cut anything I always just square up one side I think you guys have seen me do this before that way I know I have a straight line right I know that that is straight because I've cut right on the edge of that so yeah okay so now that I have a straight line then I'm gonna cut I'll start with the first one it's two and 3/8 so this is second nature to me right now but here's what I want to show you alright so if you're looking at your ruler and I just blew it up here so that you can see the first thing you're doing is this is your one inch line so one inch right okay so half of that is right here which is a little bit longer line on most of the rulers that you have now sometimes you have something like this so it's just a tiny bit longer than some of these other lines that is the halfway mark so this is half of one inch so that's one and a half that's one half right okay so and when you split those two up that's your quarter inch line and this is your quarter inch line so if I'm measuring that this is my bottom that's a quarter inch this is a half inch 3/4 inch because I'm measuring from here and then that's my full inch now where it gets kind of crazy are these little lines right here these are your eighth inch lines right so but in order to count the eighth inch so if I need you know 3/8 inch I'm looking at this I'm going 1 2 3 so this would be 3/8 line okay and then because this 2 half and half is for 1/2 of 8 is 4 this is all math this is your 5/8 inch line okay sometimes and and these are used in patterns especially patterns that we have to cut triangles or do stuff on the diagonal so this if this is 5/8 that's 6 eighths we would call it 3/4 really it's a quarter-inch line but it's 3/4 from the bottom right so this is 1/8 1/4 1/2 5/8 3/4 it's a quarter-inch line but it's 3/4 from here and then this is of course 7/8 so that's your 7/8 inch line and then that's your inch so that's the difference in the if you'll notice the 1/2 is a little bit longer than the force and then they H are longer shorter than any of them so now here's where these kind of I think get confusing because the entire thing is a grid and you really have to pay attention to which one you're talking about I have to admit I've gotten so used to reading this ruler I tend to use it more than I do this other one that being said this other one does allow you to see things keep it on grain or see it closed because they give you all this grid work to work with the other thing about rulers that you may not know is they also can show you how to cut a 45 degree angle or a 60 degree angle or a 30 degree angle and so what you would do is if I wanted to cut a 45 degree angle then I would line up that 45 degree angle on the bottom let me skip this up on the bottom so that's my 45 degree line do you see my 45 degree line right there I would line that up on the bottom and then I would cut and I would know that this angle is a 45 degree angle same with 30 same with 60 and sometimes you have those so your rulers can really do a lot of stuff I know that in some of our patterns we use the 45 degree angle and most most of your see this has 60 45 30 so it allows you to do if you need to cut it this way or if you need to cut that 45 degree this way so you're still being able to use the ruler kind of thing so if I was doing a let me close this up if I was doing two and three eights I'm gonna measure two inches and then when I go one two three that's my 3/8 line and I'm just gonna make sure that little line is lined up all the way down right that and then I would cut this it's kind of a bad glare so maybe if I use purple maybe purple will help let's trim it up of course you always I always trim like I always trim so if you fold it any trim on a fold you know that you're gonna have a straight line okay so that's that so if I need to cut a two and 3/8 strip I can just line all of this up on that one two three that's my 3/8 if I were doing five-eighths I just go one past the halfway mark because four eighths is half four of eight is half and then just one past that is five six although we would call six three quarters and then seven eighths so they're really the ones you have to pay attention to is an eighth which I rarely see people cut an eighth I see people cut on the quarter inch line 3/8 5/8 every once a while and definitely semmen eighths if you're doing triangles a lot of times I'll tell you to cut on the triangle I avoid that sometimes and all new quilters I just have them cut on the inch line if they're doing a triangle certain methods of triangles and then just have them trim the triangle down so that's actually how to read a ruler not everybody is comfortable doing that so I just thought I'd give you all a tip on how to look at it and be sure to LIKE share and subscribe and we will talk to you later you

Channel: The Stitch TV Show

Views: 11,188

Rating: 4.9553905 out of 5

Keywords: quilt, quilting, sewing, how to quilt, quilt rulers, quilt ruler markings, beginning quilter videos, beginning quilter

Id: ZG_Rn1H75RU

Length: 7min 49sec (469 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 08 2019