My favorite specialty ruler is the Tucker Trimmer..

I use it all the time. It’s great for half square triangles, quarter square triangles, and just for trimming to the correct size. I was introduced to the Cat’s Cradle ruler. It’s my new favorite ruler. The Cat’s Cradle is a block with triangles. It’s one to avoid for quick piecing. The Cat’s Cradle ruler eliminates triangles and uses squares and rectangles. It also makes two blocks at a time.

You can make several size blocks with this ruler. Cutting instructions are printed on the ruler.

The squares and the larger triangle are the focus fabric, and the smaller triangles are the background. You cut two squares, two small rectangles and one larger rectangle. .

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Sew the squares to the rectangles. Press towards the rectangles. When the two pieced rectangles are sewn tougher, the bottom piece seam should be facing down so it won’t twist.

Snip to the seam in the middle of the piece. Press each end toward the rectangles.

The ruler has a drawn square that is placed on the stitching on the wrong side of the piece. There is a cross hair at the edge to place where the seams cross. Draw a line at the edge of the ruler.

Place the larger rectangle under the above piece, right sides together. The instructions say to sew on the lines, but I have found that the seam needs to be one needle to the right of the line in order to cross where it is supposed to. . The pencil line is outside the edge of the ruler. Aim for the spot where the two seams cross.

Cut 1/4″ away from the line. There is a tiny scrap cut away.

You will have two cat’s cradle blocks. Open up and press towards the rectangle. Trim them to the size that you want. I use the Tucker Trimmer for this step. The more that you make the faster it will go. I’m trying to use up the Japanese Robert Kaufmann fabric so started making Cat’s Cradle blocks and ended up with a quilt that is 11 x 11 blocks. It took no time at all to make the blocks. I’m not putting a border on this quilt. The binding will be the border. It’s very important to take a picture of the quilts before you think they’re finished. There was a twisted block in the middle of this quilt. It was very obvious in a picture. A little unstitching, turning and resewing solved the problem.

There is still a lot of that fabric to use. The bags don’t seem to empty. I have another quilt planned. Then there is a big bag of strips. I haven’t decided what to do with that. The inspiration will come. All the small scraps go into two bags, one for strips and one for pieces. That will be for a Mile a Minute quilt. I can sew them on a day when I don’t want to think about matching seams and being accurate. I can see at least four more quilts before that fabric is gone. I’ve made or will make a lot of quilts from the free fabric.

Have a great day and happy quilting.