Thursday, August 2, 2012

Tools Tuesday - Thursday Edition

For today's edition of Tools Tuesday I'm talking about the Easy Angle.  I did a little tutorial here on using this ruler for making half square triangle units, but today I have another use for this ruler.

This is the ruler and it is by Sharon Hultgren for EZ Quilting.  They are available everywhere!


This is a star point from my Hubble/Hubbel quilt.  Doesn't it look perfect!  Well it didn't start out that way.


It started out ugly, 


this kind of ugly!

So when I consulted an expert about what to do about this messy point I got this response, "just pretend it's a giant flying geese unit and sew the sky units on the geese unit the old fashioned way. "

Sorry, but my old fashioned way was using Eleanor Burns flying geese rulers, and then I moved on to Monique Dillard's Fit to be Geese rulers.  Really, there's another way to make flying geese, a way that doesn't involve making them big then squaring them up?  If this is the old fashioned way I'm glad I'm a relatively new quilter, I'm not sure I would have survived making geese that way!  Did you cut the pieces with scissors?

So after I explained that I wasn't 110 years old and didn't ever in my life make flying geese "the old fashioned way" I got a nice little tutorial about the point hanging off the top.

But how much point to hang off, well here's how I determined that.

This is Hubbel/Hubble's gigantic goose unit.  I lined the point up on my cutting board just like this.



Then I laid the "sky unit" or as in the case of Hubble/Hubbel, the pieced star point block, on top of the goose unit and put just enough of the point off the top so that if fit in the black tip of the Easy Angle ruler.  


Really, there's a fabric tip underneath that black point.

Note how I lined the bottom of the black tip with the yellow line on my cutting mat, that is the tip of goose unit.  Then I pinned it in place, sewed it on, then pressed it per the pattern's directions.

Then I did the same with the other side.



See how the tip that is off the top is the exact same size as my Easy Angle tip?


Then I pinned, sewed and pressed.

Ta Da!  A perfect quarter inch seam allowance  is above that white point on my goose.



Once I used my Easy Angle to accurately measure those points, every one of my Hubble/Hubbel points came out perfectly.

Oh, and here's one more Hubble/Hubbel tip, those geese units are cut from huge squares, bigger than any square ruler I owned, so I folded a piece of fabric twice and cut it out using a ruler half the required square size.  Make sure the edges of the ruler is right on the folds. They came out perfectly square!  Then I cut them twice to get my big goose units.


And this my friends is a Not Terrible Tools Tuesday on a Thursday!

17 comments:

  1. Thelma, I think I have one of these and I've never used it. When I was stocking up on supplies during a great sale when I first started quilting, someone said it was a must have so I picked one up. There it has sat. I'm off to go look to see if in fact this is the same ruler I'm thinking of!

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  2. I use the Easy Angle to cut the triangles for making square in a square - perfect every time! and I have the extra large size too but as yet haven't used it for anything. Using it to do the flying geese this way looks great - another method to try when I have time. Thanks for the great tutorial,
    Cheers!

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  3. Genius!!! Seriously good to know for those times when we cannot use Monique's ruler!!!!

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  4. wow...alittle harsh on the "old fashioned" way, don't you think?
    Bev

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  5. Don't worry Thelma, I have been among quilters for over 15 years and I still don't get that "old Fashion" way. Which is why none of my earlier quilts have even the remote semblance of a Flying Geese in them.
    And now, I never need to think about it since I too only use Monique's ruler when making geese. I love that darn ruler!
    This one it not too shabby. I have it someplace among my rulers. I will need to keep it more at hand. Thanks for the great tip (no pun intended) on using it for flying geese that don't fit Monique's ruler.

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  6. I never knew you could use the Easy Angle that way! And so that's what that little black tip is for? Thank you Thelma!!

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  7. I didn't know the old-fashioned way either, but love this Easy Angle method--great post.

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  8. I've used this ruler before Thelma but I really liked your tutorial. I bought the Hubble pattern (on line pdf - I love it!) after I saw your first post of it and am going to copy this tutorial and put it with my pattern so I can get perfect points, too. Many thanks!

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  9. Thanks for a great tutorial. I do like this ruler. I have Monique's ruler to but can't figure out how to use it. Maybe you could do a tutorial for that some time?

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  10. Great tutorial for making flying geese units. I learned the traditional way of making flying geese (only 3 years ago) but I must admit that mine didn't turn out perfect because I didn't have a tool like this to use! They were close, but not perfect. My quilting teacher wanted us to learn everything the traditional way first, then she let us branch off into using shortcuts afterwards.

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  11. I have that ruler and never used it. Thank you for the tutorial. I LOVE Hubble and I plan to order it. Just need to figure out what fabrics to use. I think this pattern needs some bright fabrics.

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  12. WOW!! Who knew? I need one of these rulers!! Thanks for this!
    Paulette

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  13. I'm not quite 110 (on my way, though), but it wasn't THAT terrible to assemble flying geese with scissors and hand piecing. Slower, yes, but there was the social freedom of being able to work on piecing units anywhere, not just at the sewing machine. With hand piecing I could always be sure of accurate piecing. That said, Hubble sure doesn't look like the kind of pattern anyone would want to hand piece. Thanks, Thelma, for a great tutorial on how to get things done correctly the NEW-fashioned way.

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  14. A terrific tools post - love this ruler...so many great uses!

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  15. Okay... I am going to reference your tool tips when I embark on the Hubble... very nice tutorial/explanation Thelma.
    Thank you.

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  16. So glad to find your blog! You are so funny..."I'm not 110 years old..." heh heh heh...you crack me up! Your work is beautiful! You have a great color sense! Thanks for sharing!

    Cheery wave from Bev

    http://44thstreetfabric.blogspot.com

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