When you consider all the tools that modern quilters can use to make their work easier and more accurate, do you ever stop to wonder how quilters in the “good old days” managed? What must they have had? Paper for making patterns? Scissors? A wooden ruler? Needle and thread? When were home sewing machines commonly available? Hmmm… let’s chase a rabbit for a moment.
Isaac Singer invented the first commercially successful, foot treadle, sewing machine around 1851. The cost of a machine in 1856 was $348–about $3,470 today–while the average household income was $500. More than 110,000 Singer machines were sold in 1860 when the total population of the United States was 31,443,321. That factors to about one sewing machine for every 286 people–-not counting the machines already in existence. By 1902 the sewing machine became affordable enough for ordinary people to own one, and around 1910 electric-powered sewing machines came onto the market.
Given these historical facts, we can surmise that quilters were creating extraordinary pieces of artwork–and keeping their families warm–with very basic tools and handiwork for the majority of our nation’s history. Amazing–isn’t it?
Aren’t you happy you don’t have to do things the hard way anymore? Hurrah for modern sewing machines and irons! Hurrah for rotary cutters! Hurrah for quilting rulers and templates!
At Missouri Star, one of our favorite brands of specialty quilting rulers is Bloc Loc. Bloc Loc rulers have a special ¼” wide groove–or channel–on the underneath side. This groove nestles over the seam allowance on your quilt blocks and “locks” them into place so that you can trim them accurately.
Bloc Loc has designed a variety of quilt rulers specifically suited for popular quilt blocks. The company has also created a series of tutorial videos–available on YouTube–to answer the question, how do you use the Bloc Loc ruler?
Squares and triangles are probably the most basic shapes in quilting. The Bloc Loc Square Up Ruler is what you need for half square and quarter square triangle blocks. It comes in three sizes–the 2½” square, 4½” square, and Bloc Loc 6½” Square Up Ruler. You may also buy all three sizes in a Block Loc ruler set. You can watch the tutorial from the Bloc Loc company for this ruler here.
Another popular choice is the Bloc Loc Flying Geese Ruler. The Bloc Loc company tutorial for this ruler shows you how to make two different blocks–flying geese and square in a square. You may watch it here. Are you still wondering how do you use Bloc Loc for flying geese? Jenny, Misty, and Natalie did a Triple Play tutorial on flying geese in June of 2020. Jenny used Bloc Loc Rulers flying geese during the video which you can view here. This is a fun tutorial to watch because all three women have unique approaches to flying geese and produce very different quilts.
You might also like the Bloc Loc Half Rectangle Triangle Ruler which is demonstrated here.
Bloc Loc Rulers for quilting help you square-up and trim your quilt blocks, allowing you to match seams precisely. This makes the process of assembling the blocks into a quilt much easier! Imagine how hard it would have been for the quilters of yester-year to match seams that weren’t perfectly straight on blocks that weren’t perfectly square. We sure have it easy using our modern tools!
Most quilters are happy to leave hand-pieced and hand-stitched quilts to history. Using tools like the Bloc Loc quilt ruler, we can produce beautiful quilts in much less time and with much less effort than the quilters who came before us. While it is interesting to wonder what might cause our current quilting practices to be viewed as antiquated 100 years from now, Missouri Star will work to stay on the leading edge of changes in the quilting industry with clever tools like Bloc Loc rulers.
