Welcome to week two of the Car Seat Cover Sew Along! Week one we made a plan, picked our designs, and gathered fabric. hopefully by now everything is prewashed and ready to go!
This week the goal is simple: get all your fabric cut! Bonus points if you start piecing, but cutting is the main event. The tricky part is that most of us aren't working straight from a quilt pattern. We're borrowing blocks, mixing things up, designing our own layouts. So before we can cut, we have to work backwards and build ourselves a cut list.
Because everyone's project looks different, this week is more of a general overview than step-by-step instruction. I'll walk you through how I made my cut list, then share the cutting techniques I've landed on after a lot of trial and error. Quilting is one of those things where there are a dozen ways to get to the same result. If something I show you doesn't feel right, do it your way! There is no one right way to do things.
Creating Your Cut List
As a reminder, I'm using the Crystal Creek pattern by The Blanket Statement, with one crystal block on each headrest and one on each seat. That's four blocks total, with the rest of the space filled in with background fabric.
If building a cut list is stressing you out, you have full permission to skip it. You can absolutely just cut the pieces for one block, sew it, and repeat. I like getting all my cutting done in one go so I can move into a sewing rhythm, so it's worth the extra time for me.
If you remember from last week, this pattern calls for 12 colors and I only had six greens I loved. So I paired them up. Fabric B and fabric E become the same green, and so on. I went back through my fabric list from week one and wrote them as combined labels (B+E, G+H, J+K, L+M) so I'd know exactly how many pieces to cut from each fabric.
Working backwards through the blocks. This pattern has two blocks that are mirror images of each other. I'm making two of block one and two of block two. This will make best use of my fabric because I am making HRTs and will end up with mirrored pairs.
Here's the math I walked through: each block needs a left and a right in each position, and I'm making four blocks, so I need four of each orientation per color. One pair of rectangles gives me two units, so four rectangles per color gets me eight units. Exactly two per block across four blocks. Once I worked that out for the first fabric, I just copied it down the list for every fabric used for the half rectangle triangles.
The center units are flying geese with a twist: instead of one color on both outer corners, mine have different colors on each side. I looked at how the unit comes together and counted backwards. Eight small squares of each outer color, and four of the unbleached rectangles for the base (that's where my raw-edge appliqué numbers are going later).
For the background, the super black gets paired with every one of those half rectangle triangle units, so I needed 16 rectangles.
If your eyes glazed over reading that, I get it. I’m about 99% sure my cut list is correct but there’s a chance I messed something up along the way. Don’t stress yourself out over the cut list, you can always go back and cut more fabric later! And if you don’t have enough it is perfectly acceptable to sew scraps together and cut your pieces from that. I mean that’s basically what quilting is anyway!
Filling In the Negative Space
The blocks are only part of the puzzle. The rest of the seat gets filled with background fabric, and this is where the paper templates from week one will come in handy.
My blocks finish at 18½". I laid the measuring tape across my paper template to see how much 18½" actually covered, and then measured what was left over. For the seat back, that meant about an inch on either side, so I planned four strips at 2½" × 20". Below the block I had a bigger gap, so I budgeted a 10" × 21" piece. The headrest measured roughly 9" × 8", and I rounded up to 10" × 10".
You’ll notice that I rounded everything up. We want the finished quilt top to be bigger than the paper template. We'll quilt it first, then lay the template on top and trim. More trimming room is better.
For the seat base, my block takes up nearly the whole thing, so I just added skinny strips around the edges for quilting and trimming room.
Again, this will look completely different depending on your design. Don't let the math phase stall you out. If you're overwhelmed, just cut the pieces for one block and start sewing. Build your confidence there and come back to the rest. I want this to be fun, not frustrating!
Pressing Before You Cut
My cutting rhythm is one color at a time: press it, cut it, move to the next. If you'd rather press everything first and then cut everything, go for it.
For pressing I like some kind of starch spray. There are several on the market: Best Press, Flatter, etc. I've become partial to Magic Quilting and Crafting Spray. I like how crisp it gets things. Before that I mixed my own with roughly half vodka, half water, which also worked great. If you've got nothing on hand, plain water in a spray bottle is better than nothing.
Here's why I use a spray plus a dry iron instead of the steam function: I want the fabric dry and crisp when I'm done, not damp. Moisture releases the hard creases, the dry iron sets everything flat.
A couple of technique notes. On this first press, I do slide the iron around, but I keep it moving in straight lines, back and forth in one direction. Woven fabric has threads running two ways, and staying in that grid keeps you from distorting or stretching the fabric on the bias. (When we get to pressing seams next week, we'll switch to lifting and setting the iron down instead.)
Pressing is not a step to skip! You need your fabric as flat and as stiff as possible to get accurate cuts. If you cut across a crease, that crease lifts the fabric and your cut isn't true. I've always compared quilting to building a house. You pour the foundation first, and if that foundation isn't level, you'll fight crooked walls the whole way up. Cutting is your foundation. It's worth taking the time to get it as accurate as possible.
Breaking Down Big Cuts
Before I press my background fabric, I break it down into smaller chunks. Wrangling three or four yards across an ironing board and then over to the cutting table is a nightmare, and it's easy to let it get warped along the way.
After looking at what I needed to cut from my background fabric I determined that I needed two 8" strips, so 16" total. I measured 17" along the selvedge, that extra inch gives me room to square up. I then snipped into the selvedge at the 17” and tore across. This ensures the fabric is on grain. Now I have a manageable piece that is easier to wrangle on my pressing station and cutting mat.
If you're using a quilt pattern, it may already tell you to cut width-of-fabric strips and sub-cut from there. Use those numbers as your guide for determining what size of chunks to break your fabric down into.
A quick heads up: if you're doing this on a regular quilt project with a big cut, add an extra quarter yard when you buy your fabric to cover those extra inches you're adding for squaring up.
Cutting Tips
Create a straight edge first. Using the grid on the ruler I line up the horizontal line with the selvedge to keep things square. I scoot the ruler as close to the edge of the fabric as possible while still cutting a little off. 
Where your hand goes matters. The most common mistake I see is people make is putting their hand at the bottom of the ruler. By the time your blade gets to the top, the ruler has shifted and your cut is off. Keep your hand in the middle of the ruler for even pressure. I use a ruler grip on mine (it's actually just a shower grab handle.) This makes moving the ruler easier, as well as applying even pressure.
Always cut away from yourself. Start the blade just off the edge of the fabric, press down firmly, and make one long continuous cut. Everyone holds a rotary cutter a little differently; I rest my pointer finger on top for extra control.
Use your ruler to measure, not the mat. I started by cutting the FQ down into 4” strips. I used the 4" mark of my ruler and lined that up with the edge I just cut. When I’m getting the ruler in place, I'm watching all the little intersection points to make sure the edge of the fabric is going right down the center of the 4” line. It may not seem like a big deal if things are 1/16” off but when you add that up over multiple blocks it starts to matter.
You may have noticed my mat is flipped over. I don't use the grid on my cutting mat for measuring, for three reasons. First, you end up cutting in the same spots over and over and wearing your mat out in the same lines. Second, mats aren't rigid, heat and moisture can shift them over time. Third, and honestly the biggest one: I just made more mistakes that way. I'd count out my measurement, then somewhere between grabbing the ruler and the cutter I'd lose track and cut an inch short. Since switching to using my ruler to measure I make far less cutting mistakes and find that my cuts are generally more accurate. Again, you do you!
If your ruler is too short to make a continuous cut. Fold your fabric in half, doing your best to line up the weave in the fabric so things stay on grain.
To cut strips that are wider than your ruler, find the measurement you need on the ruler, line that up with the cut edge and then make a little nick into the fabric to mark it. Do this again at the top of the strip then rotate your ruler and connect the marks to make your long cut. Again if this is feeling confusing just use the measurements on your mat!
Labeling and Handling
Be gentle with your pieces. It's easy for cut fabric to warp or shift, so the less handling after cutting, the better. When two pieces are stuck together, use the edge of your fingernail to lift a corner rather than yanking them apart.
And please, label everything. I write the fabric letter on a sticky note and clip it to the stack with a wonder clip. This makes assembly so much easier, because patterns rarely say "grab your 4" × 8" rectangle" they say "take piece B." Future you will be grateful for the labels!
As I finish each fabric, I check it off the cut list and set the labeled stack aside.
That’s it for my cutting tips! Hopefully this info was helpful for you. One last reminder that this is just how I do things, if this doesn’t work for your brain that’s okay!
Your Goals for This Week
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Build a cut list for your design (or skip it and cut one block at a time, whatever keeps you moving.)
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Press all your fabric with a starch spray and a dry iron.
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Cut your pieces and label every stack.
Next week is piecing! We'll start putting our blocks together and I'll share tips for accurate quarter-inch seams and pressing. If you fly through cutting and want to get a head start, go for it!
Gus say’s “I believe in you!”
