Put a Pin in It! Tip for cutting long strips of fabric with a cutting mat

 As quilters we know it's important to accurately cut our pieces if we want them to fit back together. Long border strips are no exception! But those strips can be really long and our tables and mats usually fall short in being long enough to lay the fabricall the way out to cut it. Here's a tip that can help with that :)

Lay out your strip of fabric and line it up to extend all the way across your cutting mat. My longest cutting mat is 24 inches so when I get to the 24, I put a pin in the fabric. I try to insert the pin straight up and down (you could also put your fabric right side DOWN and mark the back with a marking tool). 

Move the strip of fabric across the mat to line the pin up with the far right of my mat - or where the 0 line is. I start counting at 25 and go until I get to the length I need.

Now the strip of fabric is measured out to the correct length. Cut it with a rotary cutter and ruler and you're ready to go!

This is the method I used to cut the border strips for my recent scrappy version of the Hearts and Churns quilt. 

Accurately cut pieces make quilting so much more enjoyable! Now my quillt top will lay flat for quilting and I will have an easier time quilting it.

Did you find this tip useful?

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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