Mayflower Mystery Quilt Along #1, Part 1 Completed Using A New-To-Me Masking Tape Ledge Trimming Technique

The Clue for Part 2 came out today which reminded me to blog about completing Part 1 which I did several days ago.  There were a bazillion hst's which were sewn oversize so needed to be trimmed down.  I had trimmed a few just using a plain ruler and it was slow going.

At just the right time, Jane M. forwarded me an e-mail from Denise O. of our quilt guild requesting that I highlight Canadian quilter Karen Brown in our next guild newsletter if I had not highlighted her before.  I had not so immediately went to check her out and found tons of video tutorials which I have been binge watching ever since.  You can find out everything about her at Just Get It Done Quilts.  I have probably watched a dozen of her videos now and have learned something from each one.  This is were I learned about Masking Tape Ledges for trimming hst's in hack number two of Karen Brown's 5 Sewing Hacks with Masking Tape video.  Please go watch it, I'll wait....

Here I have a masking tape ledge made up of 4 strips on the back of my ruler butted up against my pressed to the dark side seam and the excess dark edges trimmed off.

I chose to use a ruler which had diagonal lines on it so it made the masking tape placement very easy.  However, since my ruler wasn't square I couldn't slide the ruler as described by Karen to trim the light side of my hst's but I figured out a work-around.  I trimmed all the dark sides and then moved the masking tape ledge to the other side of the line and then trimmed all the light sides of the hst's.

It was so quick and accurate I trimmed all 168 blocks at once.  Another bonus with the masking tape is that the texture of the tape grips your fabric so your ruler slides less which means you don't have to press on the ruler as hard to keep in it position.  So here are all my trimmed hst's and my four-patches from Part 1.

I have Part 2 printed so I can start working on it and you can bet I will be using the masking tape ledge trick again.  Thanks to Denise O. for bringing Karen Brown to my attention and thanks Karen for everything I'm going to learn from you to improve my sewing.  I have already subscribed to Karen's YouTube videos and signed up for her Newsletter and added her to My Blogs I Love to Read List.