Working the (Patchwork) Angles
Posted by Carolyn Cullinan McCormick on Dec 11th 2017
Patchwork triangles and other shapes with acute (less than 90°) angles can be tricky. The same angles that make such appealing shapes and patterns in our quilts also unfortunately create wonky tips of fabric that are tough to align correctly when sewing patches together. Trimming these fabric tips at an engineered angle solves the problem and allows patches to line up beautifully, but not all template patterns are designed that way. And if you’re rotary cutting patches with acute-angled corners, you’ve been totally on your own to figure out how to sew everything together.
But not anymore! Our new Trim-A-Tip™ acrylic tool lets you trim the tips from angled quilt patches using a couple of fast swipes of your rotary cutter. And we’ve designed it to work for any acute angle used in patchwork, including 30°, 45°, 60°, and 67 1/2°.
With the Trim-A-Tip, it’s much easier to make fun quilt blocks like these:
Trip-A-Tip has done all the geometry and math for you. Just line up the tool with the fabric and/or template, and make two small cuts to create easy-to-align edges.
Check out the step-by-step tutorial on our website , and then give the Trim-A-Tip a try . We’re sure you’ll see improvement in your angled patchwork immediately!
Carolyn Cullinan McCormick of Add-A-Quarter®
