Welcome to Week Two of the Blanco Quilt Sew Along! Last week we talked all about choosing fabrics for our quilts and shared color inspiration. This week we are cutting fabrics for our Blanco Quilt. Everything throughout the pattern is straightforward, so this post is a bit of a supplement to help with some tips and tricks.
If you are still on the fence about sewing along, then this a perfect week to jump in and join us before we get too far into the thick of things.
Blanco Quilt Week 2 Task: Cut Your Fabric
The Blanco Quilt block looks complicated but it’s made up of simple components like Half Square Triangles and Flying Geese. Even the middle unit is simply a cross and a square in a square block. Below are a few of my key tips when cutting your pieces.
Choose Your Tools
When starting any new quilting project you should start with a fresh rotary blade, do I always do this, nope but it does help make things easier, so if you’re a beginning quilter I recommend starting with a fresh blade. For my cutting I utilize a 6-1/2″ x 24-1/2″ ruler, a 12-1/2″ square ruler, a 8-1/2″ square ruler, and a 2-1/2″ x 12-1/2″ ruler. I also like to use a Stripology Ruler for cutting my background fabric, but it’s more of a luxury rather than a necessity. Creative Grids is one of my favorite ruler brands, as well as the new Tula Pink Hardware rulers.
Tip #1 – Skip the pre-wash for Fat Quarters.
This pattern calls for the fat quarter to be 18″ x 21″ and we don’t want to risk any shrinkage that you might get when pre-washing. This is because pre-washing can reduce the size of your fat quarter and you may not end up with enough to meet the fabric requirements. If you’re making the two-color quilt and you like to pre-wash, then wash away!
Tip #2 – Be Precise
When cutting fat quarters be careful when trimming off your selvedges, I recommend trimming right on the edge where the white portion of the selvedge meets the fabric. Making this quilt fat quarter friendly requires your fat quarters to measure 18″ x 21″ so that you get two blocks per fat quarter. There is very little wiggle room when cutting from fat quarters. So follow the cutting diagram closely.
Tip #3 – Label Your Pieces
I’ve included labels within the pattern for marking your stacks of pieces. The pattern calls for 2-3/8″ pieces and 2-1/2″ pieces from your background fabric and that’s just a bit too close for comfort in size. Ask me how I know you should label the pieces. 😉
Want to make things scrappier than the fabric requirements? Within the pattern you will find the fabric piece count per block, so theoretically you can make every single block different. A friend of mine has even figured out how to make the quilt layer cake friendly!
Bonus Fussy Cutting Tip
The fabric I am working with, GRL PWR by Damask Love, has an amazing feature print that I want to use in my quilt. The only “problem” is that it’s super directional and I don’t want it going all different ways if I were to cut it how the pattern is written. So I fussy cut one block from that print and filmed a quick tutorial on how I did it.
Cutting Your Background Fabric
Thankfully the cutting of your background fabric is as simple as cutting strips then sub-cutting them into squares or sashing. I filmed a couple quick tutorials for if you are interested in the Stripology Ruler. It’s definitely an investment, but it speeds up cutting significantly.
Blanco Quilt Questions?
Do you have questions about cutting, supplies, fabric, or anything Blanco Quilt related? There are multiple places for you to ask them!
- Here in the blog comments.
- Shoot me an email.
- DM me on Instagram
Week 2 Sponsor & Prize
This week one lucky winner will receive a 60mm rotary cutter from sponsor OLFA!
This OLFA rotary cutter features a large, 60mm blade of high-quality tungsten steel, which can cut up to 12 layers of cotton fabric at once. It is perfect for fabric cutting or as a quilting tool, easily standing up to cotton, wool, paper, vinyl, leather, and more without losing its edge.
-OLFA
How to Win
- Post a pic to Instagram. The photo prompt for Instagram this week is to post a picture of your cut fabric, no matter how much you’ve cut so far. Use #BlancoQuiltSAL in the caption. Make sure to use the correct hashtag.
- You must have a public Instagram profile to participate. Images from private accounts will not show up in the hashtag list if you are a private account.
- Each photo posted is an entry and you can enter as many times as you want in a single week.
- This prize is open in the US only.
- The winner will be picked randomly from all qualifying posts and announced at approximately 11:00 p.m. Central Time on Sunday, May 9, 2021.
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