Product Review - Bloc_Loc Ruler

Here is a 'sneak peak' of an in-progress quilt on my design wall. 

I want to make a 'scrap' quilt with Island Batik fabrics and solid white. I am working diagonally through the colour wheel.  

I just started making a few yellow blocks and liked how they looked. I have sorted my fabrics and continued making blocks and arranging them on my design wall.

Then it hit me! I will need 800 Half Square Triangles for this quilt! The quilt will be 10 blocks x 10 blocks = 100 blocks; and there are 8 Half Square Triangles in each block.

I don't think I would have started if I had done that math at the beginning but I'm moving along well with the Bloc_Loc ruler!

The helpful assistant at one my local quilt shops told me the Bloc_Loc ruler was great for squaring up half square triangles.

I always make these by using squares that are cut slightly larger than the size I need and I 'square them up' so they are perfect every time. I usually use my 6" square ruler to trim them square.

The Bloc_Loc has a diagonal groove on the underside, designed to 'lock' into place along the seam line. When I first put the ruler on my half square triangle I knew something was wrong. 

If I had trimmed with the ruler in that spot I would definitely be trimming too much!

I had to turn the ruler around, be sure that it was 'locked' and that the block size I wanted was inside the fabric edges.

I trimmed the right side and the top,

then I turned the block around and lined up the cut edges with the measurements on the ruler and made my final two cuts. These are perfectly trimmed.

The only drawback I see with this ruler is that there are no instructions with the tool. If you go to their website (www.blocloc.com) you can see exactly how to trim the blocks. 

The key part that I didn't know until I watched the video is that the Bloc_Loc logo on the ruler should always be placed on the lower side. That is the one that does not have the seam allowances underneath. Once I knew that it was very easy to position the ruler and trim my blocks. 

The video also shows how to trim quarter-square triangles accurately. This is definitely my new 'go to ruler' for trimming half square triangles. I used the 6-1/2" ruler but they even have a 12-1/2" BlocLoc ruler for larger blocks.