Hey Everyone, welcome back to Cool Tool Thursday.
This week’s tool will make life so much easier when you are squaring up all of those half square triangles and quarter square triangles we quilters are forever making.
I really have never been a gadget and ruler girl [Editor’s Note: REALLY?!?! How many rulers in this house?!] but I had heard many great things about this ruler and how it really was a must have in a quilter’s tool box.
While I was at a retreat last November I had an HST to square up and a fellow quilter had one of these rulers so I borrowed it. I was absolutely amazed at how much easer it made squaring up a half square triangle. Only 2 cuts instead of 4 and no twisting and turning and flipping of the square.
What is this fantastic ruler called?
It is the The Triangle Square Up Ruler by Quilt in a Day.
The ruler comes in a 6 ½″ or 9 ½″ size.
The marking lines are very clearly marked in full inches and half inches from 1″ to 6 ½″ in ½″ increments. One side of the ruler is the full inch lines and the other side is the half inch lines differentiated by colour and dashed or solid lines. This makes it easy to read and easy to use.
How it Works
Note: my demo uses a quarter square triangle – do the exact same steps for a half square triangle.
Once the pieces for the half square triangle have been sewn together cut them apart on the pencil line between the stitching line.
Do not press open – with this ruler the pressing is done after the squaring off.
Lay out the triangles on the cutting mat with the stitching line closest to you.
Lay triangle on mat.
The size of QST needed is 3 ½″. Place the ruler on top of the triangle with the 3 ½″ line on the stitching line.
Place 3 ½″ line of ruler on stitching line.
Trim away the excess fabric from edge of ruler.
Trim off excess fabric.
Press open. Trim off the dog ears with either scissors or a rotary cutter.
Press open, trim dog ears.
The result is a perfect 3 ½″ quarter square triangle.
A perfect quarter square triangle.
Wasn’t that easy – no more flipping, turning and realigning. Squaring up was never so fast.
This ruler is definitely worth purchasing and I am not sure why I didn’t purchase one a long time ago especially when I was making my Ocean Party quilt which has 196 half square triangles in the one versions and 48 in the other version – life would have been much easier with this ruler.
Coolness Factor – Quilts by Jen rates it 8 out of 10.
Usefulness Factor – Quilts by Jen rates it 10 out of 10.
Happy Quilting!
Disclosure Note: I buy and use the products mentioned in this post and write about them without influence from the designer or any other commercial interests. I have included links to the products on Amazon.com and may receive a small commission if you purchase from these links. This doesn’t cost you any more to purchase these items but it does help me maintain this website, so I hope that you will please use these links.
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