OLFA rotary cutter and rulers for quilters on the go | strip piecing quilt

Yesterday I showed you my new favorite craft bag, the HEMLINE GOLD Multi-Use Craft Bag (28.5cm x 36.5cm x 17.8cm). It’s the perfect size to hold all my quilting supplies. Today I’m using the OLFA 45mm ergonomic rotary cutter and OLFA 6″ x 12″ frosted acrylic ruler to prepare for today’s sewing while using the Oliso M3Pro Project Iron to keep the strips for our strip quilt pressed to perfection. Let’s get started.

Magenta OLFA 45mm ergonomic rotary Cutter and an OLFA 6″ x 12″ Frosted Acrylic Ruler.

A strip quilt is one of the easiest quilts to make. The first step for our quilt is to sew each strip end to end using a ¼” seam. Considering a strip is on average 40” long, once all the strips are sewn end to end the resulting pieced strip will be approximately 1600” long. Press the seams open.

Now take the 1600” long strip, fold it in half lengthwise with the right sides of the fabric touching, and sew along one long edge.

With only 3” to 4” of the folded strip remaining to be sewn use scissors to cut the fold open. Repeat this step at the end of every seam for all upcoming folds.

Cut the end of the strip on the fold.

Open the strip set, fold it in half again, right sides together, line up the raw edges, and sew along one edge. Don’t forget to cut the fold before you sew to the end.

Fold the strips a second time and sew along one side.

I don’t stop and press after every seam at the beginning. I wait until I have a four-strip wide set and then I press. As I wasn’t sure my sister had an iron, I had my Oliso M3Pro Project Iron—Coral with me, just in case. Well, it’s a good thing I did because all my sister found of her iron was an empty box.

When you’re ready, place the strips on your ironing board and press all the seam allowances in one direction.

Using the Oliso iron to press the seams.

After the pressing is completed, fold the four strips in half and sew along one long edge. From now on, we’ll press after each seam. The fold and sew step will need to be done twice more, but before we do this, we’ll cut the strip set down a little.

We’re making the cut now because the strip set is currently eight strips wide, 16½”, the perfect width to use the OLFA 6″ x 24″ Frosted Acrylic Ruler. From one end of the eight-strip set cut off a 54” section and set it aside. We’ll be working on this piece tomorrow.

Cut a 54” section from one end of the eight-strip wide strip set.

As mentioned earlier, a typical strip is approximately 40” long. With a 54” section removed, the remaining strip set should be approximately 165” long or better.

Fold the eight-strip set in half, right sides together, line up the long edges as before, sew, and press. The strip set will now be 16 strips wide.

Do one last fold. Sew along the edge one last time and press. The strip set now has 32 strips.

The last step for the day is to square off the edge. I folded the quilt in two and used the OLFA QR-6×12 – 6″ x 12″ Frosted Acrylic Ruler and the OLFA QR-6×24 – 6” x 24” Frosted Acrylic Ruler end to end to trim the edge.

Square off the raw edges of the strip quilt.

OLFA 45mm ergonomic rotary cutter and OLFA 6″ x 12″ and the OLFA 6” x 24″ Frosted acrylic rulers.

I truly believe that quality tools are a must. With the OLFA 45mm ergonomic rotary cutter, the OLFA QR-6″ x 12″ and OLFA QR-6” x 24″ frosted acrylic rulers, and the Oliso M3Pro Project Iron a quilter can’t go wrong.

We’ve finished the main body of our fun and easy strip quilt. Tomorrow, we’ll add an element of interest to your quilt by working with the 54” section we removed earlier and some black fabric. Join me!

This is part 2 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 1: What’s in your Hemline Gold Multi-Use Craft Bag?

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