Tool Time

You may have heard (or read) me say that I am not a fan of specialty rulers, but when I find one that does what it promises, works for multiple sizes, lefties or righties, and offers options, I'm happy to share with you.

I had heard high praises for Doug Leko's Simple Folded Corners ruler so I put it on my Christmas wish list last year.  One of our boys gifted it to me, but I only got around to trying it recently.  (Couldn't be because it got buried in the ruler basket next to my cutting table ... just sayin'.)

One of my least favorite things to do in this crazy hobby is drawing a line and stitching 1/4" on either side of it or, worse, stitching ON the line.   Not saying I'm ever perfectly accurate, but I'm "just-as" accurate when I stitch against a cut line and I haven't taken the extra time to draw the line.  And then there's the issue of all those cut off triangles that I can't bear to throw away .... oh, don't get me started!

When faced with the chevron units in my current project, Almost Colorado Lily,

I tried several methods that would not only yield an accurate unit, 

but would also eliminate the cut off triangles.  

That's when I said, "If I just had that ruler ..."

After all, the floral fabrics were free and I'm not in love with the background.

So what do I care if I trash the triangles!

Here's how it works ... Place a folded corner square face down on a rectangle (my squares are 2.5" and the rectangles 2.5" x 4.5"; I'm using the "exact size" option).

Then position the ruler so that the first solid line is at the left edge of the square.  You can see that the diagonal line is going from corner to corner of the square where I would have drawn the line to stitch on. The cutting edge is 1/4" to the right where I would be trimming the cutoff after stitching with the "line" method.  I like that the lines on the ruler are relatively fine and the intermediate markings are just dashes and/or crosshairs which makes placement easy.

I take them to the machine and stitch from the side. (That pin on the long edge is telling me the rectangle was cut just a little shy of 2.5".  I'll adjust for that in the next seam.)

I press toward the corner by pulling the straight edge in line with the side of the rectangle, then move the iron up toward the corner.

Repeat the process on other end of the chevrons ...

Bottom line -- I'll probably use this ruler more often when the situation warrants it.  But those cutoff corners ... I just couldn't resist the urge to salvage them.

Since each block yields 8 cutoff corners, I am putting them into pinwheels of four.  Rather than trimming them as triangles, I will square up the pinwheels.  OR I may put frames around each of them and then square up ...