Recalcitrant to the end, this quilt refuses to be 100cm square. I’ve done the quilting now and am marking the trimming lines before doing anything irreversible with the rotary cutter. Now I may suffer a spatial intelligence deficit BUT I was always pretty good at maths and know that four sides of equal length at right angles form a square inside. Why then is one of the sides of my “square” quilt longer than the others when all my corners are at right angles?
Chantel says
it was at this point I have up knitting squares when I was teaching myself to knit.
Diane says
You mean I’m not the only one that happens to? I still haven’t figured out how that happens. Maybe it’s a unique — erm, SKILL to have that happen. That’s it. It’s a special talent. If we can figure out how to exploit it, we could write a book about it and be famous, eh?
Caitlin O'Connor says
Arrgh! I feel your pain! So what are you going to do? Does blocking it help?
kirsty says
When you figure it out, let me know too!
DebGeyer says
It must be “new math”!
Dianna in Maui says
Brenda, here’s a tip I use from my carpenter husband: you have to measure from corner-to-corner diagonally (from one corner-to-corner, then the other) and make sure the measurements are equal. If not, your quilt isn’t truly square even through all four corners are 90 degrees. I had a quilt that I thought was square until I hung it up, and it looked slightly “off.” He took it down and showed me how to measure it. It was off by about 3/4 of an inch on one side! Doesn’t sound like much, but you sure can see it.
Now I make him help me square every quilt! 🙂
Next time I have one to square and bind, I’ll do a tutorial on my blog. BTW, this works with rectangular quilts as well.
Brenda says
Dianna is exactly right. I used this very approach (before I got received her comment) after talking to my carpenter husband. At last my quilt is square!
Deb H - Cold Feet Quilter says
When making my ‘Oh! To Dance WIth A Dolphin’ quilt for the Feel Free contest, it had to be something like 51″ square. I made a design board that size out of foam-core board, & left about 4 extra inches on each side of the quilt until the quilting was finished. THat was when I cut it down to size, & it turned out perfect.
Good luck Brenda.