Speed cutting

I was thinking today how we often times hear about "speed piecing" or "chain piecing" or other time saving tricks at the sewing machine... but what about speed cutting? No, I don't mean to see how fast you can run your rotary cutter across the mat, after all, we do like our fingers. ;) But ways we can cut out some of the tedious work from cutting. So here's my tutorial!

I layered 5 red FQs carefully on top of each other. I trimmed off the scraggly ends and made a 6" strip cut.


I moved the uncut fabric out of the way and moved my ruler by 2" and made a cut on the 4" line.


One last cut at 2"


Now the sub-cutting. (Yes, I turned my mat around). I placed the ruler on the farthest even number I had, which was 8. Make a cut.


Move it over to 6", make another cut.

Continue to cut at 4" and 2". Move those squares out of the way and cut the rest of the fabric.

In 15 minutes (could have been less than 10, if I didn't have to take pictures. ;) I had 150 2" squares. Now that's speed cutting! :)


We can add sneezing and runny nose to my cold now. Seems like I spent most of the day trying to figure out how to breathe. :P At least I have a sympathetic husband, as he's still trying to recover from his cold. :)

Tomorrow is the guild meeting! I really hope I feel better, cuz they're going to give a report on the quilt show. But I'll survive if I can't make it. ;)

Leah