Hey Everyone, welcome back to Cool Tool Thursday.
A while back, when I did my post on what is fussy cutting, I had a conversation on LinkedIn with Kaye Wood. Kaye has been a quilter for a number of years and is well established in the business writing patterns, creating templates, teaching classes at sea and a whole lot more.
She has developed all of these great templates for fussy cutting – oh so much easier than trying to see the fabric and design through all the markings on the ruler. Not to mention so many different shapes and sizes. There are circles, hexagons, pentagons, octagons, hearts, diamonds and squares. Not only are they great for quilting blocks and appliqué but also can be used in scrapbooking, woodworking and all kinds of other crafts.
A variety of different shapes of templates and sizes
Kay was very generous and sent me a set of her templates to try out and write about, thank you. I think they are great – especially for fussy cutting – I could actually see the design I wanted to fussy cut and know exactly where I was cutting rather than trying to guess with a piece of cardboard or a ruler.
The templates are made of very sturdy white plastic which nest together for easy storage.
Templates fit together to form one piece for easy storage
They pop apart in different sizes for different projects. Here are the circles and octagons.
Four different templates in each set
They were very easy to cut around with the rotary cutter and they didn’t seem to slip under my fingers – a rotating mat would be great with these templates for easy access all the way around the template. I just walked around my table since I could. I used my small rotary cutter (28mm) which worked liked a charm, quite sure the larger 45 mm would work just as well.
The large octagon shape
The small circle highlighting the centre of the daisy
I only played with the circle and octagon shapes. The octagon would work great to fussy cut fabric for the Snowball Block – I fussy cut a piece to appliqué onto the middle of the block. Perfect for a kids quilt or a Christmas project.
The large octagon shape placed in the centre of a snowball block
I would recommend fusing fusible web to the back of the fabric prior to cutting then it will be all ready to fuse in place if you want to use the piece as an appliqué.
A fussy cut circle on the multicoloured snowball
Not only can you cut solid shapes with the templates but you can also cut outlines of the shapes by cutting on both sides of the template.
Fussy cutting rings in different shapes
So much fun and so many shapes – I have an idea of what to do with some of the other shapes but you will have to wait for another day to see what I create.
Thanks again Kaye for sharing your templates with me – they are awesome.
Happy Quilting!
Now doesn’t that make sense! Kaye Wood is brilliant! And big thanks to you for bringing them to our attention!!
Thanks so much for your great review.
Just a helpful note—you can always cut on the outside of the shape. For instance if you want the 8″ circle, cut around the outside of the 8″ shape; to cut the inside, insert the 6″ shape inside the 8″ shape. Remove the 8″ shape. Then cut around the outside of the 6″ shape.
You are very welcome Kaye. Thanks for the opportunity to do the review. The templates are great. Thanks for the tip on cutting. I am looking forward to playing with the other shapes.
You might mention Kaye’s quilting cruises. The next one is to Australia next January. They are so much fun and Kaye is a terrific teacher.
Mary