How to fussy Cut Fabric
Fabric Line called Hootenanny by Renee Nanneman for Andover Fabrics
There are probably many ways to fussy cut a cute motif and piece it into a block. I’m sharing my method using the tools everyone has on hand
Before you cut anything…make sure your fabric is well pressed. I use Magic Quilting and Crafting Spray to tighten up the fibers and stabilize the fabric. You’ll want to do this ahead of time so the fabric is ‘preshrunk’ and does not continue to shrink once you start to building your quilt block. Prewashing the fabric will also shrink up the fibers.
I created a template using a heavy weight piece of card stock or one could use a cereal box. Determine the size of the desired fussy cut motif and add 1/2” to include the seam allowance (1/4” on all sides). Using that dimension draw a square (or whatever geometric sharp you like) inside the card stock, leaving approximately 2” of cardstock for a border. Cut out the ‘window’ with an exacto knife or sharp scissors. Just not your good fabric scissors!
Place the template throughout your fabric capturing your motif. Positioning it evenly to expose your special character. In the photo below, I used a small acrylic ruler to measure the areas around the moon and owl to make sure it was centered, or at least appeared that way. I even went into an area as shown by the arrow that i knew would get absorbed by my seam allowance.
Testing the waters by moving the template around to see if i can squeeze that white area into a seam allowance!
Keep in mind you will want to cut the fabric on the straight of grain if possible and not the on the bias.
Once all the motifs are drawn onto the fabric, loosely cut them out with scissors. I cut outside the drawn lines so they are larger than the actual size needed. Once that is done, use an acrylic ruler to square up your fussy cuts to your desired size.
If you look closely, you might be able to see that every owl is not sitting up as straight as another. Depending on what you fussy cut, you may want to be more exact than I. However, these owls are just happy hoot’n and holler’n with each other!
