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Sunday, September 25, 2016

Trimming down "Afternoon Delight" blocks...



 Call me old-fashioned, and mostly I would agree with you.  There are a lot of new-fangled, modern quilting shortcuts that I embrace whole-heartedly.

But when it comes down to trimming hand-applique blocks, I prefer to be safe than sorry.  Especially when I am trimming down to an unusual size for which I don't own a plexiglass ruler.

Even though I still have handful of Sue Garman's "Afternoon Delight" applique blocks yet to stitch, I just could not wait to start trimming them to the unfinished size of 7-1/4 inches square.

I have a 7-inch and 7-1/2-inch commercial ruler, but no 7-1/4-inch size.  I made my own plastic template with lots of drawn lines to make it easy to find the center and line up the corners.

Because I have a tendency to slip when rotary cutting (especially when I am nervous trimming hand applique work), I got the template where I wanted it, then piled on my vintage pattern weights (I use them on the commercial square rulers, too!!).

Then, I draw around the template with my ultra-fine sharpie (or a Pigma pen).

Next I cut out my block using scissors to the inside of the ink mark.


Ta-da!  Yes, I know slicing and dicing with the rotary cutter would have been quicker, but I am completely confident with this method.  I typically watch movies or TV while I am working, and it is easy for me to make a terrible rotary mistake while trimming.  This old-fashioned, but sure method keeps me from hopping around the house, swearing...

I have been having trouble with Blogger...may be related to using Chrome as my browser.  I have not been getting email comments from all of you, which makes it hard to reply to thank you or answer your questions...SORRY!  And it makes me cranky.

Then, when I started this post 2 days ago, I could not upload photos.  MORE crankiness.  I just posted this using Internet Explorer.  It uploaded my photos, we will see if I get your comments emailed to me.  I want to do a give-away of goodies, but the comment to email thing needs to work again first.

Anyone else having this problem with Blogger?


In stitches,
Teresa   :o)




12 comments:

  1. I have had the same problem with my blog that I use wordpress for - I used to get email notification of all comments, then suddenly about 4 months ago I stopped getting any notifications, that went on for about a week then I was getting them again. Then it started all over again about 2 months ago it started all over again. It has never settled out - now after an update I get a little symbol at the top of my blog indicating a comment I can answer the comment and the answer goes to my blog and to the person - it makes for a lot of comments piling up in my blog but nothing I can do about it. now suddenly I am getting email notification of about a third of the comments that come in to the blog - I haven't a clue what it is all about and have not been able to fix it.

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  2. Pots and pins has posted several times recently about having the same problems

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  3. making your own template/ruler is a helpful idea,thanks

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  4. making your own template/ruler is a helpful idea,thanks

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  5. I always love your ideas and your problem solving.

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  6. Your block is wonderful! I 'm not having Blogger problems that I know of!

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  7. Thanks for this great info, I absolutely hate trimming my blocks and make mistakes so often that I usually cut my blocks to size to begin with. Guess I need to try your method! I stopped blogging for that very reason, I was having issues in both. Getting and sending comments and finally in frustration gave up! Hope you figure out a fix for your issues.

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  8. Looks like a good method..I get really nervous when it 's time to trim.
    I am always having trouble with Blogger, especially when loading pictures.

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  9. I blog primarily from my mac using Safari. So far so good!

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  10. What floats one boat, sinks another. Sounds like you have devised a dependable method. Your applique always amazes me. So perfect --and perfectly pretty.

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  11. I'll take applique over football!

    Rondi

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  12. What a clever tip ..... I have some applique blocks to trim and am a tad nervous over them too.

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