I do love me a . . .

. . . a squared-up HST!!

What did you think I was going to say? (Grin)

Been making a bunch of these critters lately. I like the instructions that Jacquelynne Steves gives in her Maggie's First Dance pattern. You cut your pieces a teensy bit larger, and then square up those bad boys and add them to your block!

And I have the most awesome tool for doing just that!

Let me show you . . .

Here is one of our lil cuties, ready to be used in the block. He fills up that two inch square just perfectly. Did ya think he came that way?

Nope.

He started out like this:

Now, don't talk too loudly -- don't want to scare the lil guy, or make him feel bad. But you can see he's kinda wonky, right? (When I first started teaching myself how to quilt, no one told me that you should square these up, and I had some really "unique" looking blocks, let me tell you!)

Here is the tool; you may already know and use this one:

Here is the magic part of the Bloc Loc ruler, the part that makes my day (it's groovy, I swear!):

Can you see it? It's a groove on the back side of the ruler. What for, you ask?

OK, I understand, I'm a visual learner, too. I will show you.

First, you take your pressed square, and slide the ruler onto it, so the groove kinda "hooks" onto or over the lil hump of the seam. Like so:

Run your handy-dandy rotary cutter along those two sides, and you have this now:

Then you turn the ruler. No, no, no, don't lift it up. Just turn it!
It's going to take the square with it! (Trust me!!)

Then you slide the ruler so that it is like this:

Trim those two sides, and you're done!

Oh, OK, I admit it. I needed to watch the video, too. Here is a link to the hugely wonderful video instructions.

I'm telling you, the best quilting tools are made by quilters, for quilters. Am I right? Check out the story behind these great rulers and squares: click here to see the home page and then scroll down to meet the peeps behind the tools. 

I'm looking at all the other cool tools they have, and making my list. Let's see, I need that flying geese one, and . . . (Grin)

Do you have a favorite quilting tool?

Love,