Squaring Up With Your Die-Cutter

Hi all!

I was doing a little squaring up today of some of my leaders and enders 16-patches and using my die-cutter to do it; so, I thought that it might be a nice little tutorial to show you how I quickly and easily square up these blocks, not with a rotary cutter and ruler, but, with my 6.5" square die instead.

When I am doing my leaders and enders projects my 16-patches come out to 6.5" square but usually need a touch of squaring up here and there.  Once I got the 6.5" square die I wanted to use it to square these up instead of my rotary cutter - I mean who wouldn't!?

 

 

Lay the 16-patch (or 9-patch or whatever you are making) across the die and take a second to line it up so that it will trim properly.  Because of the seam allowances this is instantly 3 layers so the maximum you can layer on the Go! is two 16-patches and on the Studio is three.

 

Put the mat on top and run it through!  Voila!  the little bits come off and you are left with a perfect square in just a couple seconds and one pass instead of all the lining up of the ruler, rotary cutting and flipping.  Easy - and I like easy.

We often think about using our die cutters to cut out but why not use it to square up too?  have you ever done this before?  I know that this might be old-hat to a lot of you but to a few of you thins might be a new idea for using your die cutters!

Are you doing any Saturday quilting tonight?