Beginner Quilt Series - How to Square Up a Quilt

This is another tutorial in our How to Make a Quilt series. After the quilt is layered and the quilt sandwich is quilted together, it's time to add a binding. 

Before binding can be added, the excess batting and backing need to be trimmed to line up with the quilt top. This trimming of the quilt is called “squaring up a quilt.” I will show you my method for squaring up a quilt.

Besides trimming the extra fabric backing and batting, squaring up a quilt makes the quilt corners at 90-degree angles and all quilt edges straight.  Squared quilts will lay flat and smooth.

Many quilts end up with slightly uneven edges, especially if there is no border around the outside. This process will even up the edge so it’s straight.

What is squaring up a quilt?

Squaring up a quilt is preparing the finished quilt to add a binding. A quilt can also be squared up before adding borders to the quilt top.  Also, individual blocks may need to be squared up.

Squaring up a quilt does not mean making the entire quilt square. It refers to making square corners and the sides straight. After it's been squared, the quilt will keep its current dimensions.

After the quilt top has been pieced, layered with the batting and backing, and quilted, it is ready to add binding. The quilt will have extra batting and backing extending past the quilt top on all sides. Squaring up a quilt will remove the extra batting and batting so the quilt has 90-degree corners and straight sides.

A squared-up quilt will lay flat and smooth on a bed once it's completed with a binding.

Let’s get started with squaring up our quilt top.  If you want to see a video tutorial on square up a quilt, please click the link below.

WHAT YOU NEED to square a quilt

• A quilt sandwich that is entirely quilted.
• Cutting Mat
• Rotary Cutter
• Large Square Acrylic Ruler – preferably at least 12" square.
• Long rectangular ruler – usually about 6" x 24"

Why square a quilt?

Quilts are squared to prepare for binding or borders. A squared quilt will lay more flat on your bed.  

Squaring a quilt will remove the extra batting and backing extending past the quilt top. It also prepares the quilt for the binding.

Do you square a quilt before or after quilting?

A quilt is squared after quilting the layers. When preparing your quilt for quilting, it is recommended that the batting and backing extend at least several inches past the quilt top all around. This aids in the quilting process and ensures you have enough batting and backing for the quilt as you quilt it.

After quilting, the batting and backing layers are trimmed to match the edge of the quilt top, which is called squaring up the quilt.

How to Square up a Quilt

Step 1: Lay one corner of the quilt on the cutting mat

Lay the quilt on top of a cutting mat on a flat surface like the floor or a large table. If the quilt is on a table, ensure that it's not hanging off the table and pulling on the quilt. This may cause the quilt to be distorted or stretched and cause a bad cut.

Here are several ideas to keep your quilt from pulling.

• Fold or roll up the extra quilt to lay on the table. (see above photo)
• Bring another table or ironing board over and rest the quilt on that.
• Work on the Floor.

Squaring up a quilt starts in one corner. So, have the first corner on your cutting mat.

Step 2: Use a large square ruler to make the corner 90 degrees

Start to square up your quilt by making the first corner square.

Place a large square ruler on the corner of your quilt. Line it up with the edges of your quilt top as best as possible. You can use your long ruler for this whole process if you do not have a square ruler.

Line it up straight without trimming off too much of the blocks or borders. 

Use a line on the ruler to decide how much to cut off. Align the ruler line with a sewn seam between a border or a block. Be sure to align with the same seam or depth on both sides of the corner.

If the blocks are not straight or connected with matching corners, you may need to trim a little bit off the blocks to straighten them. This is completely normal! 

Even if you need to cut a bit off your blocks and lose a point here or there, the quilt will still be beautiful!

Double-check before cutting to make sure you haven't shifted off the mat. Then, use the rotary cutter to trim the corner along the ruler.

Trim the other side with your rotary cutter.

The first corner has been trimmed and is straight and square!

Step 3: Move to the 2^nd corner and trim in the same way as in Step 2

The 2nd adjacent corner should be trimmed first before trimming the sides of the quilt. This will allow the ruler to connect up with the trimmed corner when trimming the sides of the quilt.

Turn the quilt so the next corner is on the mat and trim lining up with the same lines on the ruler used to cut the first corner.

Trim both sides of the corner.

The 2nd corner is trimmed and square.

Step 4: Trim the Side between the First two corners

Turn your quilt so the long side between the two trimmed corners is across the mat. Leave part of the trimmed corners on the mat to align your ruler.

Lay your long ruler along the side of the quilt at the edge of the blocks. Lay it so that you will not trim the quilt blocks or just a bit of the blocks.

Use the same lines on this ruler when trimming the sides as when trimming the corner.

You can have a bit of batting showing along the trimmed edge. The binding is sewn on with a ¼" seam, so as long as it's less than ¼" of batting showing, it will be hidden in the binding.

The ruler should overlap with the section trimmed previously to help keep it straight. Always overlap the ruler into the cut section at least 4" – 5" because you want to be sure your ruler is straight, and if you only overlap a couple of inches, it may not be straight.

Use the rotary cutter to trim the side for the length of the ruler. If your quilt is long, cut the section you can with the long ruler. Then, move the quilt to trim the next section. Continue until the whole side is trimmed.

My quilt was a little longer than the ruler along the long side. Check in the photo above. After trimming that first long section, I moved the ruler to the remaining section and then was able to match up the ruler on the trimmed side and into the trimmed corner area.

I trimmed the side with a second cut using the rotary cutter. The finished trimmed side is shown above.

Step 5: Continue Around Quilt

Trim the next corner and side of the quilt as described in the previous steps. The photo below shows trimming the third corner.

Then, trim the side between the two corners.

Finish squaring up the quilt by trimming the fourth corner and side.

Don't worry too much about the quilt being "exactly" square. Squaring up the quilt mostly trims the batting and backing, even with the quilt top, and provides a consistently straight edge to attach the binding. 

The quilt will look beautiful as long as it's primarily square!

Adding a Binding

After trimming your quilt, the next step is adding quilt binding. We have several quilt binding tutorials, including a couple of no-hand sewing methods.

• Flange Quilt Binding—This is my favorite quilt binding. I do not like to hand sew, and this is a new hand-sewing quilt binding. 
• Quick Quilt Binding - This is another method of no-hand sewing quilt binding. It's slightly quicker than the Flange binding because it uses only one fabric.
• Traditional Quilt Binding—This is the familiar quilt binding method, where the binding is sewn to the front of the quilt, wrapped to the back, and hand-stitched down.

Use our binding calculator to determine the number of strips you need to cut to create the binding for your quilt.

How to square a Large Quilt before binding or adding borders

Here are some extra tips for squaring a quilt top or larger quilt. The example below is a full or queen-sized quilt top. This quilt top is made up of many different-sized strips sewn together.

As you can see from the photos, the edge is very uneven after sewing the strips together. Before adding the border to this quilt, I squared up the two uneven edges.

Squaring up a big quilt is done in the same way as this quilt top. You would be squaring up all four sides as needed.

Using a similar method to that described in this tutorial, the large square ruler was laid in the corner. For this quilt, I also placed the long ruler across to determine how much would need to be cut off to align all of the strips.

The corner and the side along the ruler were trimmed. Continue by cutting the opposite corner and side as described earlier.

Then, use the long ruler to continue cutting the side between the two trimmed corners until the ruler overlaps the cut sections on the opposite corner.

Don't forget to overlap your ruler with the previously cut edge by at least 4" - 5" on each cut. Line up the cut edge with the side of the ruler, which will help keep the ruler going straight.

Should I square up my quilt before adding quilt borders?

This will depend on your quilt and how uneven the sides of the quilt top are after sewing together the blocks.  

The top and bottom edges of the quilt shown above with the long strips were very uneven. I could not sew the border onto this quilt without squaring up the edges.

If your blocks are almost even and less than 1/4" off along the edge where they are sewn together, you would not need to square up your quilt top before adding the borders. But it could make it easier to sew on the border.

When squaring up a quilt top full of pieced blocks before adding the borders, try to cut off as little of the edge as possible. Follow the steps described in this tutorial to square up the quilt top before adding borders.

BEGINNER QUILT SERIES

• Cutting: Beginner Quilt Series - Cut the Blocks
• Sew Blocks: Beginner Quilt Series - Assemble the Blocks
• Make your Quilt Backing: Beginner Quilt Series - Make your Quilt Backing
• Layer and Pin Baste: Beginner Quilt Series - Prepare your quilt for quilting
• Quilting the Top: Beginner Quilt Series - Quilt the Layers together
• THIS POST - Squaring up the Quilt: Beginner Quilt Series - How to Square Up a Quilt
• NEXT POST - Binding A Quilt (three options): 
  • Flange Quilt Binding (No Hand Sewing)
  • Quick Quilt Binding (No Hand Sewing)
  • Traditional Quilt Binding
• Labeling your Quilt: Modern Quilt Labels and Tags

OTHER QUILTING TECHNIQUES

• Tying A Quilt: How to tie a quilt instead of quilting it - Learn How to Hand Tie A Quilt
• Pillowcase Quilt Finish: How to finish a quilt without binding - Learn How to Finish Quilt without Binding - Pillowcase Finish
• Quilt Label: Making a customized quilt label - How to Make Quilt Label with Inkjet Printer