Have you ever found yourself stumped on how to trim your quilt blocks? Been there – ha! This is why I’ve been wanting to share this tutorial with you on how to square up your hourglass quilt blocks.
With a couple of seam lines to contend with in this modern quilt block, it can be confusing where to place your ruler and make that first cut.
There’s nothing worse than cutting your fabric, piecing your block, and then trimming it incorrectly – bleurgh. All that work for nothing – ugh.
I’m going to help you avoid that quilty situation by showing you the exact steps I take to trim up my hourglass quilt blocks.
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What are hourglass quilt blocks?
Since I’m a self-taught quilter, I always appreciate when tutorials provide additional details that may seem obvious to a quilter who’s been quilting for a while but might be completely foreign to newcomers.
So, with that in mind, an hourglass block is the patchwork equivalent of an hourglass. It’s a classic block that allows you to have fun with your colour pairings.
The Pink Lemonade Quilt Pattern includes a couple of different blocks, one of which is the hourglass.
How to trim an hourglass quilt block
There’re a few ways you can piece this block, but I like the method that reduces seam lines, and shows off your pretty prints better 😉
After making a couple of Pink Lemonade Quilts, I’ve gotten good at trimming those blocks up, and I’ve got a 5-step system that never fails me (well, rarely fails me, there have been ruler slippages incidences, but let’s not dwell on those!).
Here’s my approach:
Step 1 – find the 45
Start by finding the 45-degree line on your ruler. This is the exact angle you want to maintain in your hourglass block. To achieve this, you want to place the 45-degree line of your ruler exactly on the center 45-degree line of your quilt block.
Step 2 – review your excess
Once you’ve found that line, take a peek at the fabric that exceeds the final size of your quilt block.
In this example, you’re looking to trim your hourglass quilt block to 8.5”.
I like to make sure that I have enough fabric to trim on all 4 sides of my block. So, I line up the 45-degree line, moving it up and down that line until I have the ruler placed in a way that enables me to trim all 4 sides.
Step 3 – take 2 cuts
Once you’re happy with your ruler placement, trim the fabric that exceeds your ruler on the top and right sides.
Step 4 – rotate
Rotate your block 180 degrees.
Step 5 – align before cutting
With two cuts already made, this next step becomes easy to simply align your ruler on your cut edges, double check you have the correct final trimming size of your block, before making your final 2 cuts.
And voila you just trimmed your hourglass block.
Step back and admire its prettiness!
See hourglass block trimming in action!
If you’re a visual learner like me, then you might appreciate seeing the hourglass block squaring up in action!
See it in this video tutorial.
Materials & Notions
Here’s everything you’ll need to square up your hourglass blocks:
- Hourglass block – shown here are blocks for the Pink Lemonade Quilt Pattern
- Fabrics include:
- Rotary cutter with these blades
- Cutting mat
- Square ruler
That’s it! Gotta love when a technique doesn’t require all the tools in your quilty toolbox 😉
For more quilt tutorials, check out:
I hope this quilt tutorial comes in handy for you and helps take the overwhelm and confusion out of how to square up your own Pink Lemonade hourglass blocks!
If there’s a tutorial you’d love to see on the blog, leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to tackle that for you!
In the meantime, have fun making and trimming up your hourglass blocks!
xo
Shannon
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