It always happens. You find beautiful fabric, you use it in a big project and the project is gorgeous! But now you have all these beautiful scraps left over. And you want to use them, because they are beautiful!
If you've found A Crafty Phoenix, you probably want some projects to use them up! So hopefully you've visited my Etsy shop, or downloaded the free Rainbow Block pattern, and you are ready to put those beautiful fabrics in a new project! But your scraps are in a wonky shape, and you want to be sure to cut on the straight of grain, definitely not the bias. But how do you find the straight of grain in scrap fabric?
Before you read this, know that this is for woven fabric, like quilting cotton! There's methods to find the straight of grain for knit fabrics (like cotton jersey) as well, but this method is strictly for woven fabrics that don't have much stretch to them.
If you've got a bit of selvage left, you are in luck. The straight of grain is parallel to the selvage, so you can just line up your ruler with the selvage, even if you've got a giant curve cut out of the fabric, like in this picture.
But if you don't have any selvage left, you are going to have to do a little stretching. Pick two sides and pull gently. If it doesn't stretch at all, congratulations! You've found the straight of grain and can line up your ruler with that edge (wherever there was no stretch).
But what if there is some stretch? If there's just a little bit of stretch, then you've found the cross grain, which is almost as good as finding the straight of grain. The cross grain is perpendicular to the straight of grain, so you can just turn the fabric 90 degrees, and that should be the straight of grain.
And if there's a lot of stretch? Then you've found the bias. The bias runs across the fabric at a 45 degree angle to the selvage (and the straight of grain), so if you turn the fabric 45 degrees and try again, you should be able to find either the cross grain or the straight of grain. Keep stretching until you find the straight of grain!
I hope this was helpful! If you came to this page without knowing A Crafty Phoenix before and are looking for a project that can use up some of those beautiful scraps, be sure to check out my Etsy shop, or sign up to get a FREE Rainbow Block pattern, or check out some of my tutorials on the blog, like this adorable tiny heart block!
Do you like using scraps in your projects? Let me know in the comments below!
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