I love Shopping, I love Tools… I guess that’s why I love quilting 😉 I guess you can get away with very basic tools, but why not make the process more enjoyable with all these lovely gadgets?

I wanna start this new series ‘Tools of the Trade’ because there are so much to share. I have accumulated a number of nifty tools and some are useful, some are just plain waste of $.

To kick off, I’m going share something that has come in SO useful for squaring up the blocks for my mish-mash-m00 quilt.

Easy Square Jr.

I bought this online after I decided to join in the fun at Bonnie’s Double Delight quilt-along. This tool is great for squaring up your blocks. It has a 1/4″ line all around, and the diagonals are great for matching up your ‘square-in-square’ block like the ones in Bonnie’s DD quilt.

How is it useful? Well, when you work with Half square triangles like what I’m doing for the mish-mash-moo quilt, the ruler helps me to square up the block. When I work with HST blocks, I prefer to cut the pieces a little bigger so that I have more run to trim it down to the correct size.

Here’s the block before squaring up. Currently about 4 5/8″ square.

Line up the diagonal on the RULER with the diagonal on the SEAM of the block. And then line up the left and bottom sides of the block to slightly beyond the 4 1/2″ markings on the ruler.

This will allow the block to be squared up on the top and right sides of the square.

Rotate the block 180 degrees and line up the sides right on the 4 1/2″ markings on the ruler. Trim the right and top sides of the block.

There you have it! A bunch of 41/2″ squares trimmed quickly and accurately! 😀