Author: Aimee

Hello, my name is Aimee Griffin, from overallquilter.com. And today I want to show you a product by Brenda Henning called Triangulations. It’s a CD, and it makes half-square triangles units, quarter-square triangle units and flying geese. This is what I used to make the tessellating triangle quilt right behind me, the half-square triangles and the flying geese units. So let’s go take a look at our tools.

For this project I’m using:

• Brenda Henning’s Triangulation 3.0 CD
• Papers for Foundation Piecing
• Tessellating Triangles pattern

When I wrote Tessellating Triangles, this was a pattern that was shown to me by a friend of mine, and she had worked out some half-square triangle units with the square in the center. And what I did was, I wrote up using squares and drawing from corner to corner, and then you would stitch on either side, or on each side right up the drawing line.
But after you did that, then you had to trim the unit down to the three and a half inch- half-square triangle. What the Triangulations CD does, it creates perfect half-square triangle units so that I don’t have to square anything down. I’m just going to stitch on those lines, and I’m going to cut on the solid lines.

So let me show you how this works. You take the CD and you put into your computer. And what you’re going to get is a pop-up that shows you the different things that you can copy. This is the half-square triangle units, quarter-square triangle units and flying geese units. And it also comes in different sizes.

I’m going to go ahead and click on the half-square triangle units. And that’s gonna take me to a different window that shows you how to make your copies and a great tutorial, step-by-step on what you’re going to be doing.

So I’ve taken, and I’ve made my copies onto my paper piecing copy and remember, I like to use the Papers for Foundation because, when you get ready to tear the paper off your unit, it’s so much easier for that to come off. So I’ve made my copies and you always want to make sure that you’re at a finished size. And you also want to make sure that the grid which is what the square is, measures seven and three-quarters (7¾) by seven and three-quarters.

Once you’ve taken your copies, I like to just cut leaving about an eighth of an inch (1/8) all the way around my solid line. Remember, your solid lines are your cutting lines, and your dotted lines are your stitching lines.

I’m going to take my two fabrics, right sides together and place that paper right on top. Now you’ll notice that when I do this, my fabric is slightly larger than my paper. I do this so that I can see and then, I can go back and trim that unit, that solid line, so that I do get that perfect half-square triangle unit.

So I’m going to take it to my sewing machine, and I’m going to start stitching following the arrows. You’ll notice that the arrow is out here, and then it goes inside, it goes outside, and then it goes inside again. On the opposite side is going to go this way, in, out, and in again. So let’s go ahead and take you to the sewing machine.

So I’ve gone around once, and I’m getting ready to go in the opposite direction. So I’m going to pull the paper out, my fabric out, and now I’m going to place it so that I can go in the opposite direction. I don’t know if you can see that, but I’ve also lowered my stitch. Just like paper piecing, you want to lower your stitch to a 1.5 so that your stitches are smaller because, once again, to tear the paper off, you might have some loose stitches if your stitches are too big.

Now that I have gone in both directions and I’ve got a great stitching line, I’m going to go ahead and cut right on top of those solid lines. And I start with the outside lines. Again, you want to make sure that you are right on top of those lines. (I notice that I’ve come off a little bit, so I’m going to go back and clean that up). But you want to make sure that you’re right on top of that line.

Once you have gone around the outside, then you can go ahead and proceed to cut the inside line. Again, I’m cutting on the solid lines. And I like to do my T first, and then I’ll take and cut my squares out. So this particular size, you get eight out of one square. And there’s my half-square triangle. You also want to cut on these little lines and that will get you a perfect half-square triangle unit. Once you have that triangle unit done, pinch it on the smaller side and pull it with your right hand.

And there is your half-square triangle unit. No need to trim this down, because of the paper you have and exact three and a half (3 ½) or three inch finished, when it’s sewn onto your block.

Both the Triangulations CD and the Tessellating Triangles pattern are available on our website.

Hello. Today I want to show you on how to change a blade on your rotary cutter.

So I pulled out all the different sizes that I own, starting with the 28mm, and I use this for small cutting, pieces like if I’m appliquéing, or if I’m paper piecing. The 45mm is the one that I use the most, and that’s just going through two layers to do all my cutting and sub-cutting. And then the 60 mm which I use when I’m going through multiple layers, like 10 to 12 layers in  one shot.

And, so those are your three different sizes. And rotary cutters come in all different shapes also. And this is the newest one which is very easy to change the blade.

But I want to go back to the ones that I showed you first because, for me these are the ones that fit the best on my hand. So with that, what I’d like to do is show you how to change the blade. And to do that, I’m going to show you how to do that.

What you want to do is, first of all take your rotary cutter, and you put your index finger on the round piece, the front piece, which is called the stem of the rotary Cutter. You’re gonna place your index finger, and grab your rotary cutter, and just flip it. Now, when I change my blades, I always do it over a table so that if something should fall, it’s not gonna go very far. Its’ gonna to sit right on the table.

The next thing what you want to do, is while your finger is on the bottom, while you’re still holding the stem, you are going to unscrew the nut. And once we unscrew that nut, I’m just going to place it down on my table.

The next thing that you’ll notice is that you have a little piece called the washer. And you’ll see that the washer has a little curved thing to it. So you want to make sure that you put that curve sitting straight up, so that you have the curve like that. And, I’m going to lay that right next to my nut.

Once I have that, some rotary Cutters have another piece called a spacer. This one does not have a spacer, so we are not going to worry about that. We’re going to go ahead and flip our rotary cutter back to the right side again, and I’m going to remove the stem, and place that down next to my washer. You’ll notice that you have your blade, and what you wanna do is, be very careful because even though, your blade is dull from the cutting, it is not dulled enough to cut you. So what you’re gonna do is take it out, and slide it out, and place that down. Put your new rotary blade. And when you open your package of blades, you’ll notice that some packages come with one blade, and some packages come with multiple blades. Make sure that you are only grabbing one blade. This one only comes with one blade. The other thing that I want to show you about blades is that, sometimes it comes with a little bit of oil on it, and you wanna make sure that you leave that. Do not wipe that oil off.

Go ahead and flip the blade on to your hands, and flip that blade on top of your rotary. Once that’s done, go ahead and take the stem, and place the stem so that the blade is now in place. I’m just gonna make sure that my blade is also closed. I’m going to return  my index finger, holding down the stem, I’m going to flip my rotary cutter, and then I’m going to replace all my units. So there’s my washer, and again, make sure that your washer is sitting with the curve up. And then I’m going to take my nut. Now, you’ll also notice that the nut has an innie and an outie. And so you want to make sure, see where the, it almost looks like a well. And you wanna make sure that, that is faced down. And when you turn to tighten your nut, just tighten it enough with your hands. You don’t really need it too tight. You’ll know once you have placed your rotary cutter. If it’s really hard for you to open your rotary cutter and roll it, then you’ve pressed it too hard, then just loosen that nut a little bit. And that’s how you change a blade.

With the newer cutters, very simple, all you have to do is, turn the rotary over the table and just press the change button down, and take your blade out, you place it with a new one, and place that back on, and push that back up. And that’s as simple as it gets.