A brilliant way to mark 1/4" seams

The patterns on FieldGuidetoQuilts.com are block diagrams that you print out and cut apart to get pattern pieces.  The pattern pieces by themselves don't have seam allowances.

You can either cut the seam allowances as you go, which is fine if you never make mistakes, or you can do the wiser thing and add seam allowances to the pattern piece.

We're in awe of Mary Jo of fivegreenacres.com for coming up with a simple, convenient, and inexpensive way to do that.  Here it is:


Find two sharp, happy pencils and get them acquainted.

Officiate at the wedding.

(That's Scotch tape.)

When the pencils are taped together, the points are almost exactly 5/16th of an inch apart.

(That weird ruler is called a pica ruler.  I use mine all the time.)

Tape your quilt-pattern piece to a bigger piece of paper.  Then line up your taped-together pencils with one point on the edge of your pattern piece and one on the paper it's taped to.

Draw the lines. 

Cut along the outer line for your new, improved pattern with seam allowance.


Using two pencils takes some getting used to, but remember, for quilters: