Cutting Diamonds

Time to sew it up! 

I've added in the new fabrics, it's at a size I like, and looks pretty good.  And as one instructor once told me, don't over- think it!

So far, this has been pretty easy.  The diamonds were no big deal to cut, and no, I did not use a GO cutter.  I did it the old fashioned way, with a template!

Using the template provided in the book, Diamond Quilts and Beyond, (affiliate link)

I traced it onto paper, but made it smaller, approximately 
8 1/2" long.   Drew in the grain lines (see the picture of that on  the opposite page?), because she says the quilt hangs better with the grain going from point to point.  Then cut it out, and taped it to the underside and along one edge of my long ruler.

To help with alignment on my strips, the yellow tape was placed parallel to the grainline.

Now, Jan cuts strips from her fabric at an angle to get the correct grain orientation, but I didn't want angled cuts out of my fabric.  So instead, I measured the width of the diamond (3 1/2")

and cut WOF strips a bit larger, at 3 5/8".  I'll have some waste versus her way, but that's okay.

Here's my steps to cutting the diamonds.
1. Lay the ruler on the strip, lining up the yellow alignment tape with the edge of the strip.

2. Cut the top edge, all the way.

3. Turn the ruler around, line up the cut edge with the diamond template edge.

Make sure the point is still on the fabric.  Make the cut.

4. Turn the fabric piece over, and turn the ruler around again, to look like step 2.  Line up both cut edges of the fabric diamond with the edges of the template.

  
Repeat as in step 2, cutting the top.

5. Turn the ruler once more, line up the three cuts with the diamond template, and cut the bottom.

Beautiful diamonds to play with!

When I did the cutting, I layered three folded strips, so that I could make six diamonds at once.  And the first cut became the bottom cut for the next diamond (before turning over the fabric).  Easy to make a bunch at one time!

Now I know there are diamond rulers, and I have one.  But it turns out, the angles are not the same, and the width is much greater.  I like this narrower one, as it looks more like a diamond.  So that's why the paper template.


Happy Quilting!