The Final Stitch: Cutting Tips for Yardage and Precuts with Natalie of Missouri Star -Video Tutorial

Hi everybody, welcome to Final Stitch. I’m Natalie with Missouri Star Quilt Company. We have gotten some great questions and comments from you guys about cutting fabric. And I’m excited to talk through those with you.

Natalie: I’m here with Liz today and she has collected some great questions for us. Liz, what’s our first question?

Liz: Hi, so Katie M. asks “When I cut my own strips, they get a bend in them. How do I cut straight strips?”

Natalie: That is a great question. One of the main reasons that you would get a bend is if the fold isn’t straight or you’re not cutting straight with the fold. Fabric often comes rolled crooked on the bolt and so sometimes you just have to straighten it out. So one of the things that I look for when I’m cutting fabric is the selvedge edge. And that is always going to be the raw edge. Sometimes it will have, or most of the time, not on batiks but on all your other fabrics, it will have all the writing about who designed it and the manufacturer and the colors. But see how this is off here a little bit.
One of the things you can do to make sure you’re getting straight cuts is to line that up. And so you’ll want to put these two pieces together and shake it out a little bit. And then you’ll notice that the fold isn’t quite straight down here. And you’ll have to feel for wrinkles and things like that to get it all smooth. And if you have wrinkles, you’re going to want to press your fabric. You don’t necessarily have to press the whole thing
but I would definitely press this section where I’ve got some wrinkles. And I think depending on how much of it I’m planning to cut, I’m going to press at least this area. I’m going to cut a strip and we’ll talk about that. So I’m just going to come right over here and press this.

Liz: And while you’re pressing I think one of the things that this
really surprised me is I’ve always trusted the fold.

Natalie: It’s not always straight.

Liz: But it’s not and this creating your own fold by pressing it nice and straight is actually a game changer for getting nice straight strips.

Natalie: Totally. I don’t know if you’ve seen the videos of how they roll fabric on bolts but it’s very fascinating. They pull it through this huge machine and wrap it around a couple of pipes. And they have the cardboard bolt on these tongs. And then it just goes flip,flip,flip really fast and the whole thing comes down. So I would say they do a great job and most of the time it’s pretty straight and you don’t have too much to worry about but if you’re worried about getting a bow in your strip, if you’re cutting small things you might want to go ahead and just straighten it back out yourself.

Liz: That just took a minute.

Natalie: It just took a second. I’ve got my selvedge edges lined up. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to line up my fold using the mat to help me get a straight cut. I’m going to pull it more to the center because I don’t think I can cut all the way over there.

Liz: Ya that cross body cut doesn’t work.

Natalie: It’s a little awkward. Alright, so I’ve got this lined up nice straight. Now if I want to fold it, I’m going to keep that nice and straight also. So I’m going to fold it down and line that up, pretty much eyeballing it. But also using the mat to tell if I’ve got a good straight cut, or a good straight fold all the way across. Alright but remember this one is most important because it’s going to give you the whole, the whole strip will keep everything straight. I’m going to grab my ruler and my cutter. So whenever I’m getting ready to cut fabric whether it’s a strip or a larger piece, I’m going to straighten the edge. And so let me show you how I do that. I always use the mat and the ruler to measure. And you can always know that you’re lined up straight by looking at the grid of the mat underneath the ruler, you can see through that. So I’m going to go ahead and give this a nice cut. And then probably one of the easiest ways to check if you’re going to get a good straight cut is to open this up and look at the edge. If that edge is straight and this edge is straight you’re not going to have a bow in your cut.

Liz: Snazzy. So when you trim off the edge

Natalie: Ya you can use your scrap, your first trim to check and make sure
that your strips aren’t going to have bows in them.

Liz: That’s so smart. You’re not going to waste fabric.

Natalie: Ya

Liz: Love that.

Natalie: Yep. So then to go ahead and demo a quick 2 ½ inch strip, once I have made that initial cut, if I’m cutting anything that is smaller than my ruler, I’m going to use the ruler to measure because it’s just a little bit more accurate, just a tad and no big deal. You can do it either way. But this is how I do it. So I make sure my ruler line is lined up with a fold here. I double check to make sure that this is also straight because we’re cutting through, now two folds. And then if everything is good, also checking all the lines on the ruler because a lot of times when you’re cutting you might think I have to look at this line. But then when you get up here it’s off by a quarter of an inch and it’s not going to give you a really great result. So just check all those lines. Just take a second and make sure everything is lined up. Whoops, I hit it again. Alright and then we’re going to go ahead and cut. And you should have a great cut. Now I typically
will pull this back just because if I have a nick in my blade that will tell me right away.

Liz: That’s also actually a great tip because then if you do need to you don’t have to line up your strip.

Natalie: Ya and the ruler will hold the strip in place so then if I have
to go back and cut a little section. Sometimes it happens to all of us.

Liz: That’s right.

Natalie: But you can see that that got me a pretty straight cut and no bow in my fold.

Liz: No elbow, yeah!

Natalie: Ya, so the trick is really just making sure that your fabric is straight and lined up nicely.

Liz: Alright. Another question comes from Breanna K. She says,
“Fabric seems to stretch when I’m cutting it. Why is that happening?

Natalie: Alright, well fabric is woven. It’s not tight or stiff. It has a lot of give and take and that’s because it’s a bunch of tiny little threads that are all woven together and it has a warp and a weft which if you’re a weaver you’ll know what that means. The warp goes along the selvedge and the weft is the straight grain. That’s where all the threads go up and down. And they weave together to create this piece of fabric that you’ve got. Typically when you cut straight grain, you’re cutting alongside one of those miniscule threads that you can’t see. And that should prevent stretching. If you’re cutting along the bias the reason that it would be stretchy is because all of those little threads get kind of get cut at the 45° angle and so then they kind of bend out. But ya

Liz: Can you show us on the fabric how the stretch works like
along the warp it doesn’t really stretch

Natalie: Sure. Ya right. So on this straight edge, you can see I’m tugging on it and it shouldn’t have any stretch at all. But then, actually I’m going to cut on this littler piece. So straight grain, that tiny thread along the edge, it keeps it from pulling apart. But then when you have, I’ll do a little 45° cut just so you can see that. Whoops. You’ve got to line up, anyway just another quick little tip, if you want to make a 45° cut, that’s what this line on your ruler is for. You line that up along the edge of your fabric and you’ll get a 45° cut there. So then you can see that this is very stretchy.
It’s really easy to pull it apart. But also, all fabric does have a little bit of stretch in it. Batiks less than most. And these aren’t going to pull apart very easily just because they’re really, really tightly woven. There’s a lot more threads in a batik fabric than in a quilter’s cotton fabric. So that’s why they might feel a little stiffer sometimes.

Liz: So Breanna, that’s probably why it’s stretching, is that there’s
a little bit of a bias to the cut.

Natalie: Yes. So what I would recommend is go ahead and straighten out your fabric again. Try and get really straight with the grain and try your cuts again. See if that makes a difference.

Liz: Awesome. Now here’s one that surprises me from time to time as well, speaking of straight of grain.

Natalie: Ok

Liz: Sonia B asks, “Sometimes my local quilt shop rips fabric. Why are they doing this?

Natalie: Well this goes back to the warp and weft discussion we were just
having. When you rip fabric it always rips straight down the thread. It’s not going to go in and out of a piece of thread. So typically I have heard of a lot quilt shops will rip fabric but mostly I think this happens with backing because backing is so wide that you can’t, you have a really hard time lining it up and getting a really straight edge.

Liz: Ya that makes sense.

Natalie: So and I can show you, this is actually something my mom does a lot on her borders. She’ll just put the border to the edge and then take a little snip and rip it off. It’s kind of scary.

Liz: Behind the scenes.

Natalie: But yes, she rips along the edges a lot. So what you’re going to do is try to find the actual edge. Alright, this is the cut edge. So to rip it and you can make a cut with your rotary cutter or with a pair of scissors. It doesn’t matter. It’s just going to be about, I don’t know, half an inch maybe to get started. And then what will happen then is the fabric will just naturally find the grain that it wants to go with. And you’re just going to rip it all the way down. And you’ll notice that this piece of fabric is getting wider as I rip and that’s because it wasn’t cut straight to the grain.
So see how it’s wider here. It’s wider in the middle and then it’s, because I started it very narrow at the top. So this rip line right here is the actual straight grain of this fabric.

Liz: So even though it’s ripped it has the edge, it’s not actually straighter than it was.

Natalie: It’s straighter on the ripped side. Yep. So then what you would want to do is use that as your edge and go ahead and refold your backing fabric so that you can then cut straight lines. And you can do that with 45 as well. If you want a really straight grain, rip the edge off and then use that as your starting point to get really good clean cuts.

Liz: Gotcha.

Natalie: Yep. It’s actually pretty cool. It can be scary because depending on how badly the fabric is cut I think you can lose several inches in both directions if it’s really poorly folded. But ya that is the reason people rip, to find the straight grain.

Liz: Awesome. Well and speaking of badly folded, this takes us to our last question of the day. MaryAnneandTom, all one word, says, “When I pull fabric from my stash, it holds onto creases. It’s not always straight. I want to cut it to add to pre cuts or make my own pre cuts so I can make Jenny’s quilts but I’m not sure how to do that from this mess. Help.”

Natalie: So I feel your pain. We all have stashes and our fabric sometimes gets shoved in a bin and gets really wrinkly. But honestly the simple answer is just to press it as best you can. And then remember that when you’re quilting you’re going to cut it and press it again. You’re going to press that thing ten thousand times before it’s already a quilt. And those
wrinkles will come out of it eventually. Starch helps a lot. I use Best Press or what’s the other one that I love so much? Flatter, I love Flatter. So any kind of spray starch, even water will help get those creases out. But ya so what I would do is go ahead and take it over and open the whole thing up. Press the whole thing and then refold it. So let me go ahead, I’ve got a few more things to press on this. It’s just going to take me a second. And then we’ll cut some pre cuts with it because that can be a little bit intimidating. I know sometimes you think, oh I don’t have layer cake squares or I don’t have a charm pack, how can I make this quilt that Jenny just showed? And really you have all of that in your stash.

Liz: That’s right and I know sometimes, I know this has never happened to anybody else probably but I will get a pre cut and I love most of the fabric in it but there’s one that’s just not my favorite and I put something from my stash in there. So I love to know how to cut from my stash to add to my pre cuts.

Natalie: So one of the things that’s fun about this is the straightening part. Sometimes it gets wrinkly and you have to move it from side to side for the fold to hang straight. And you’ve got to line up those edges and just press it out. Alright.

Natalie: Alright so I have pressed this back into submission. I’ve got a nice straight edge down here. My selvedge edges are lined up. I’m going to go ahead and fold it just because it will give me a lot less that I have to reach
for. And I’ll bring it to the middle, lining it up again on my mat with that straight line. And you can see now that because I went ahead and straightened out the entire piece of fabric instead of just the beginning I still need to straighten up this edge.

Liz: Sure.

Natalie: Even though I did a great job the last time. So don’t feel bad about that in no way.

Liz: But you could check it again to see.

Natalie: Yep I’m going to go ahead and cut this cut

Liz: I love that trick.

Natalie: Make sure we’re still straight. Yep, still straight. Still good. Alright, another thing about this that I just want to shout out, you’ll read this a lot in patterns where they say cut a ten inch strip and then sub cut. So
that is essentially the instructions for cutting pre cuts. So you’re going to cut ten inches across because you want a ten inch square. And so I’m just going to look at my mat and know that, you know, 16 to 26 is ten inches. And the reason that I’m using the mat to measure is because my
ruler is not ten inches wide. If I had a ten inch wide ruler I’d plop that sucker along the edge and cut it. But I need a ten inch square. So I’m going to go all the way over here to the 26 inch knowing that the math is correct. You can also count the squares if you want to. Mom does that all the time and it’s a great way to double check. Lining up the top and the bottom in both directions. Go ahead and cut that and then I am still going to pull this away, make sure that’s nice and straight and got a clean cut. Then you’re just going to turn it, and if you have a rotating mat that’s great but a big piece like this is super easy to just turn.So then what
I’m going to do just to make sure that I can get everything cut, I’m going to look at both ends. I’ve got 27 here. That will cut just the fold off. And then I’ve got ten inches over here to 17. And that is going to cut the clean straight edge, it’s going to include the selvedge edges. And that way everything will be clean on both sides. And then if I need to adjust it I could pull it one way or the other before I cut that first cut. So I’m going to cut on this side first. And then I’m going to go ahead and come over here and cut my line, cutting off the fold. And I’ve got, because I have this folded in half I now have four perfectly square ten inch squares.

Liz: Fabulous.

Natalie: And that’s how easy it is. It’s so great.

Liz: And so just as a recap too, when we’re doing this, sometimes we need for a pattern more darks or more lights than in a pre cut. Sometimes maybe my favorite color is not in there and I want to add my favorite color. So there’s lot of great reasons to dig into your stash and cut and add these in. And this is also why you would cut background pieces where in a lot of our patterns will say cut a strip three inches and then sub cut that and the same thing, right?

Natalie: Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Use a combination of your mat and your ruler.

Liz: And then one last piece here. A lot of times we have people who have collected fat quarters and fat quarter bundles and so we also have in the description for this video a link to a PDF that will show you how many pre cuts you can get out of those fat quarters. And it’s a lot more than you might think.

Natalie: Yep, fat quarters are very versatile. And that is a great little diagram. It helps to know, you know, we do this a lot so I know just by heart that you can get 16 2 ½ strips or squares from a strip. And I know that you can get four ten inch squares from a ten inch strip. That’s just like, math that stays with you when you do it that often. But having that diagram sure helps a lot.

Liz: Absolutely. So make sure you check that out and you can download that. You can also subscribe to this channel so you can get all of our videos and all of our great tips. But today’s tips, I think the top tips answering Katie, when I cut my own strips, how to get that bend out is to line up the selvedge edges and cut on the straight fold.

Natalie: Cut on the straight fold.

Liz: Clean up your fold.


Natalie: If your fold is crooked, that’s why you’re getting that bend.

Liz: Right. And Breanna wanted to know about the stretch when
I cut it. And that’s because of the bias probably.

Natalie: It probably is just a little bit on the bias.

Liz: And so we also have something in our description that shows a diagram of the warp and the weft and the bias to kind of give you an idea of what that looks like visually. Now we know why and how to rip fabric which is a pretty cool thing for the straight of grain.

Natalie: It’s not as scary as it sounds and it can be kind of therapeutic.

Liz: And you can pull fabric from your stash and absolutely, again, straighten it and make your pre cuts so thanks, Natalie for all those great tips today.

Natalie: Thanks so much for joining me today on the Final Stitch. See you next time.