Jelly Roll Quilt in 32 Minutes with Qtools - Better than ever!

Hi. I am Marci Baker and today I want to share with you today some tools I have developed that make my sewing and quilting much faster. They're called Qtools and Cutting Edge I use whenever I am cutting strips. Sewing Edge I use on the bed of my sewing machine and Corner Cut I use to decide where I place my Sewing Edge so I get a very accurate quarter inch seam. I'm going to use the Jelly Roll quilt as an example to compare, people are having Jelly Roll quilting races right now because it is so popular to see how face they can sew 40 strips together that are 2 and 1/2 inch wide and I'm going to actually cut my strips. people usually use pre-cut strips. I'm going to cut the strips so you can see how the Cutting Edge makes my cutting faster and then we will time the sewing using the Sewing Edge. So lets look at the cutting. So here I'm going to show how I use the Cutting Edge on my rulers to mark my line, and not just mark it but create a stop. I've already got this on my ruler at 2 and 1/2 inches but let me show you how the strip, just a piece of vinyl, applies to the back side with no adhesive and we are going to turn the ruler upside down and count one and a half because that is the measurement I am going to use on something else and I'll put this on the line at one and a half and I just kind of line it up at one point and then get it lined up down the line, pt some pressure now its on there till I peel it off. It lasts forever and again no adhesive and just store it on your rulers and that way you remember to use it. It is going to create a lip or a stop so that as I go to cut my fabric you can see and you will see as I do this demo that it catches the edge of my fabric. My ruler actually stop. So lets look at the actually cutting of the fabric. So here is my stack of fabric that I'm going to be working with. These were provided by Moda and it's their ABC123 American Jane fabric. Let me show you how we're going to cut our fabric and I'm going to give a lot of tips on some rotary cutting basics that I think will be helpful. First thing, I don't wash my fabric and that's a whole nother lesson. But I may have creases in it whenever I'm cutting, that doesn't bother me because I'm going to be placing the ruler on top of the fabric and I'm going to know that it's flat. I have the salvages running parallel to each other. they don't have to be right on top and here the fold is already in there from when it came off of the bolt and that's sufficient for me. Basically I've lined up length wise grain. SO I have a single fold and now I am going to double fold because I am using a smaller mat and I like to work with a short ruler because then I don't have the ruler slip as I am making my cuts . We're going to bring this fold not to the salvages but we are going to cover the selvages. And I'm going to also demonstrate this to were we don't have to turn our mat around in order to get the second cut but the ruler is going to do the measurement. Also notice that my mat is upside down and I am using the bask side. This is actually the front side because I don't use the lines and the lines don't create any extra noise because all I am doing is lining up the ruler and my fabric and so it takes less time. I'm going to, I have this double folded from here on out everything that matters,or the only thing that matters is the folds are parallel to each other and we're going to measure that and see it based on the rule. So the first step I do is to line up the ruler along this top fold and I also make sure I am running parallel to the bottom and this is off, this side is a little bit longer than this side. So what I'm going to do is I am going to lift this fold and I'm going to slide to to the longer edge and what this does is it pulls this side down and this side up. I am off by about a sixteenth of an inch so it's not going to be much that you'll see, but I just lift it and shift and now I measure again and I've got it lined up parallel here and I look to see where I am running here and we are parallel there so we're ready to go as far as cut. No I am cutting two and a half inch strips and that is this part here. So I am going to turn this around and in order to not have to turn all of my fabric after I make my first cut, the thing that I'm going to do is going to cut my strip width plus the scrap. Usually you cut the scrap off first. We're going to cut the strip width plus the scarp and I need about an half inch which is a little bit more than my orange. So I use my orange to guide that I'm going to cut enough of the scrap. So I have my two and a half inches plus scrap, I'm parallel here and parallel up here and I'm ready to make that cut. No hold your hand just so it's kind of like a spider rather than your plam down and it's less likely to have things slide. I also have my fingers off of the edge of the ruler quiet often to prevent me from pushing the ruler and having it slide. We're going to take in and line up our arm and line up the cut and make the cut. And I always before I remove this hand, I pull the fabric away. Then I know I have made my cut and I don't have a dull blade and we're going to turn around this small amount here and we're going to then line up our cutting edge and it butts up against the fabric and we're going to have it lined up and from here on out any strip I cut I need to look for a "C" shape. I tell my students that c is for cut. If I can look and line up a c meaning I line up right here, here and here then I can make this cut and know that it is straight. Parallel, parallel and lined up with my Cutting Edge and I know that I am going to get a straight strip. So this is my first strip and that's the scrap and I'm at number one and I need 3 strips out of this so we'll line up our ruler again and we need a c shape. It's all lined up and I can make the cut, pull the fabric away and then I just slide this over, I don't even bother to pick that strip up, it's not in my way and my Cutting Edge slides up against there and look for that "C" shape. And this one is, we're still okay but on the next one, if I needed anther cut I would need to change the cut on this. So let's look at that, we've got our three strips that we need for the project but lets look at this and say okay would we know that we need to change it. So here I am lining up and here is were that fold or that crease may be getting us in trouble but I'm okay with it and as I line this up an I line up here and i line up here. I'm off just a hair by a sixteenth of an inch like I was before, this side is longer so we need to shift it that way again. So I am going to shift this slightly and here is were I'm going to cut it again. This is not a raw edge any more it's some raw edge with some scrap and so I know that I need to re-straighten when ever I don't have my "C" lined up and that's, I showed you how to arrange that so you can make that first cut again. And so we're going to over lap that for the Cutting Edge and since I don't need another strip I'm not going to cut this. But I have my "C" lined up except I have my scrap here so we'll cut this, turn it around and cut this like the first one. That's some basics on rotary cutting. I like having that shorter ruler so I can make a quick cut and I don't have the ruler sliding on me and the Cutting Edge makes it so I can make quick cuts exactly the same over and over and over. I'm going to finish cutting my stack of strips here and it will probably take me 10 or 15 minutes and then we'll get that prepped in order to do the Jelly Roll quilt. So I have prepared my strips and let me show you these other two tools. The Corner Cut we're going to be using on the machine. It has a scant quarter on it and so I'll be able to line up the needle in the groove of the scant quarter, the perpendicular line up with something on my machine and then place the Sewing Edge on the bed of the machine. The Sewing Edge goes on the bed of the machine on the part that is removed and easily removed. You don't want to take this on and off every time you have to remove the bobbin. So make sure you cut it to the length that you need and have it just on the one surface, make sure all of the edges are down. Now the adhesive on this makes it such that lint will start collecting on it so you want to be aware of that. So I want to demonstrate really quick how I sew two strips together and using the Sewing Edge to make it faster because if I didn't have Sewing Edge I wouldn't be able to do this. I line up the two edges, I put three fingers under the strips and then I put my pointer finger in between them and then my thumb goes on the top. And what I am going to be able to do there, let me get this started, I'm going to be able to manipulate my fingers between the layers to align them and this finger just hold the fabric right up against the Sewing Edge and then I know I have a perfect scant quarter. And to test it after you sewn it you can take your scant quarter on your Corner Cut and check it with the seam and the stitch and make sure that you have the right size. We're ready to go with the scant quarter. So here I have my one long strip, I have kind of divided it in half, the outside ends are the loose ends and I'm going to sew this together. It's 5:15 lets see how fast I can get this done. And there is our quilt, finished. I like it, I like the way the black turned out, I was wondering were it would turn out. I'm going to do some close ups so you can see they types of seams I did with the 32 minute piecing of this top because Sewing Edge and the Cutting Edge make it so much faster and can be consistent and precise. So let's look at some close ups. So look how straight those seams are. Let's look at the back side. here be have some of the back side. Here we have some the worst seams right here that I didn't get the two edges together but for the most part they are all right together and the seams are very straight. Very few if any of the little puckers or waves that can happen whenever you have don't have something like Sewing Edge on your machine. So those are some great looking seams and at least I think so especially because of how fast I was trying to sew. I don't sew like that most often though my husband might say " Ah she was racing at the end." But it makes it fun and easier when you know that the tools you are working with make your quilting successful. So hopefully this has helped and I've enjoyed sewing with you today. Thanks.