How to Square Up Fabric for Cutting
Heather ThomasLearning how to square up fabric before cutting any pieces for your next quilt is an important lesson. Heather Thomas teaches you how she squares up fabric after it has been pre-washed and gets it ready to be used.
Fabric
Heather first begins by explaining how she likes to pre-wash her fabric. If you plan to do this step it should be done after you bring the fabric home from the fabric store- before you do any other preparation with it. She then explains how she dries the fabric, which is different depending on if she plans to use it right away or not.
Once the fabric has been washed and dried she explains how to fold the fabric selvage to selvage, explaining where to find the selvage on a piece of fabric. She then shows how to manipulate the selvage if needed due to it shrinking when washing. Once the fabric is folded, she explains what the new ‘true’ straight edge is to base your cuts off of. This edge then gets lined up with a line on your cutting mat and the raw edges can be cut. Learning to square up your fabric like this not only ensures that any strips or pieces you cut will be straight but it helps ensure a square quilt in the end.
Heather also gives tips on what size of ruler she likes to use when squaring up fabric as well as tips on how to best hold the ruler so it doesn’t move when cutting. Once you have your fabric square you can cut all of your pieces and begin working on your next quilt. Even though you are piecing with precisely cut pieces of fabric, it is still also important to square up your quilt blocks with precision as well.
Everybody has an opinion about the age old question in quilting: wash, pre-wash, or don't pre-wash. And I am a dyed in the wool pre-washer. I believe that I want to know everything that my fabric's going to do when it's laundered before I use it in a quilt. And, if I just pull it off the bolt and use it that way I don't know if it's gonna shrink, if it's gonna run, if it's gonna wrinkle a lot, any of those things and I want to know my fabric before I use it, so I pre-wash. Well one of the reasons a lot of us don't like to pre-wash is because it often distorts the fabric.
And we've got this yardage of fabric then, that we have to deal with that is no longer folding selvage to selvage. And so we're not quite sure what to do about that. So this came out of the dryer, and when I wash and dry I wash like I would wash my finished quilt which for me is using the product Synthrapol. And then I throw it in the dryer til it's almost dry, pull it out iron it dry the rest of the way and then use it. If I'm not gonna use it right away, then I let it dry a little bit longer but not much let it air dry the rest of the way fold it up and put it on the shelf and use it whenever I want to use it, but so here we have this piece of fabric it's a yard and a half and I'm gonna want to cut some strips off of it.
So, the first thing I'm gonna do is fold it together selvage to selvage. Now if you don't know what the selvage is that is this printed portion here. One of the things that happens often, but not always, in the laundering process is that the selvage will pucker up. Didn't happen with this one. But one of the things that you will notice is that this is not straight, and the selvage rarely is.
So even if you do fold selvage to selvage and your fabric will let you do that meaning that when I fold that yardage in half I can line up that selvage. So even if I can, it doesn't necessarily still mean that it's true to the grain because the selvage can become quite warped. I'm gonna do something that a lot of people don't often do. If I were to rip the selvage off it would have a truer edge to it. But then I'd have to go back and iron it again too.
So instead what I do, is I come in and I pull that selvage really hard and I make sure that there is no shrunken-ness in that. And that helps me align it a little bit better. Now this happens to be a really nice piece of fabric. Sometimes when you fold you're fabric selvage to selvage you'll end up in a rough rumple along your folded edge, but I don't have one which is very nice. And, I've got a pretty true edge.
So this is not gonna be that hard to square up. But that is the first thing I need to do. I need to square up my edge before I can cut my strips. And I'm gonna square it up not against the selvage, but I'm gonna square it up against the fold. The fold has now become my true.
The selvage is not my true. The fold is my true once I find that. It's nice if you have a big table but it doesn't always happen that you do. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna line my fold up on any of the lines on my mat. And this is really the only time I ever use the lines on my mat cause otherwise I'm using the lines on my ruler.
And once I've done that, I'm then going to use my ruler and line my ruler up on my fold. And that's why I use this big square ruler rather than the long ruler. I want to make sure that I have both sides of the fabric where I'm cutting off past the one mark. And I'm gonna cut. And because I know I have a nick in my blade I'm gonna cut a second time.
I now know I'm true because this and this are forming a perfect 45 degree angle. And I'm gonna come up here line up with my one inch up there line up with my fabric down here and cut the rest of the way. Now I'm ready to start cutting whatever strips I need to cut. I have two options here because I want to measure off my ruler. I can lift up the fabric and move it.
Or I can simply turn it around. Now this is because I'm right handed. So, now I'm gonna be using my ruler to cut my strips rather than the mat. It doesn't really matter at this point where that fabric is on the mat. And I'm gonna cut a 2 1/2 inch strip.
So I'm gonna line the 2 1/2 inch line up with my fabric and I'm gonna hold this ruler with my hands up not my hand down. My hand is up and it's the tips of my finger that are on that ruler and pressure from my upper body holding that down. If I hold it with a flat hand and I put pressure on it then it moves. So never hold your ruler with a flat hand. Always hold your ruler with a cupped hand.
Always make sure that all of your fingers are at least a 1/2 inch away from the edge, and cut. I'm gonna do it a second time only because I know I have that nick. Now I'm going to fold a little bit of that fabric away just so I can easily line this ruler up. I could have switched to a long ruler at this point but I've got my square ruler out right now so I'm just gonna use that, and I cut. Fold that over and cut my next strip.
That's how easy it is to true up the edges of a piece of fabric and begin cutting. Use your mat in the beginning to cut your first true line and then use your ruler from then on to do all of your measuring.
Thank you for that. I was wondering if you have any tips for me i'm left handed but after some damage to my thumb i struggle to hold my cutter very tight and end up going over my material multiple times and my ruler ends up moving anyway, so i then end up with nicks in the fabric
The video isn't working. :-(
Can you show us how to do this with a piece of fabric that isn’t nicely lined up?
Am I squaring up my fabric correctly??
This was a nice video. Would it be possible sometime to show how to do a wonky fabric that got way off and you try to square that up sometime?
Thank you Heather I’m a newbie and your vídeo was perfect💕
previous comment of mine should read PREWASHING, not preaching!
I'm also a prewasher. Thanks for letting folks know the benefits of preaching.. Consider adding a bit to the video about what to do when the cut edges do not line up and you get a pucker at the fold. It seems to happen more often than not and is a bit tricky to sort out. It would be helpful for folks who are trying this for the first time. I usually buy an 1/8 yd. extra to allow for this-- you can lose a lot of fabric if it distorts in the wash!
Can you explain why you use the ruler and not the mat to measure? I line up my long ruler edge from point to point on my mat. Thank you. Enjoy your videos.
A big “thank you” for this video. I too am a “washer” in fabric prep. And I square up my fabric before cutting. I have no quilt sisters who do either of the above. I feel reassured in my prep work.