CUTTING THE QUILT BLOCKS (or how I became a rotary cutter fan!)

Believe it or not, I have hand cut every single quilt I have ever made. After well over 100 of them, I am starting to feel the effect of all that work in my thumbs so I knew that I had to make the leap to rotary cutting. Now that I have tried it, I am wonder why I waited sooooo long! Thank you, Pam for the gift of the cutting board, the ruler and the cutter! Once I got the hang of it, I zipped through the 1800+ cut pieces in an afternoon (and took a trip to the fabric store with my friend Phyllis to pick up rotary cutting supplies). The center of the quilt will have 225 – 4-inch squares with 8 pieces in each square! That’s a lot of hand cutting. Becky, when you next quilt with me, you will never have to hand cut again like you did on the Halloween quilt. Hallelujah! I am a convert! Here is a picture of me, the happy rotary cutter and a picture of all the different fabrics cut and ready to sort and pin.


Please note, this is just the center of the quilt. I have not cut (or for that matter, completely planned) the rest of the quilt. It is important to tell you that I scaled back this quilt a bit from the original plan. I want the center to be 60 x 60 inches (20 x 20 – 3-inch blocks) so I had planned to do 400 –3-inch squares. Before starting to cut, however, I looked at what size those little triangles would be and decided not to go there! 15 x 15 – 4-inch blocks achieved the same 60 x 60 inch center. This decision is also based on sheer quantity and self- knowledge. 225 blocks is doable – 400 blocks? I am not sure.

Oh, did I mention I plan to finish this quilt in time for the Westmoreland County Fair in August?