- 1). Place the cutting mat on the table. If you have several cutting mats, use the largest one. Place the quilt on the table, right side up, with one edge on the cutting mat. If the quilt is large, and the weight of the quilt is tending to drag it off the table, loosely roll what parts of the quilt won't fit on the table and use the chairs to support the rolled-up portion of the quilt.
- 2). Cut the backing and the batting off roughly using the shears. Leave about 1 inch of backing and batting around the quilt. You are only roughly cutting off the excess material and will do a precise trim to prepare the quilt for binding with the ruler and rotary cutter.
- 3). Line up the ruler with the edge of the quilt portion that is on the cutting mat. Align the outer edge of the ruler with the edge of the quilt top. If the edges of your top are not perfect (and few people's are), and you don't have a border, ensure that the points of any blocks on the edges of the quilt will not get trimmed off when you trim the quilt. You may need to re-work some small sections of the top to ensure that points and the seam allowance will not be trimmed.
- 4). Trim the one section of the quilt covered by the ruler using the rotary cutter. If you find you are working with too large a section for your hands to manage, switch to a smaller ruler. Move the quilt to place another small section on top of the mat and trim that section. Work slowly around the quilt, precisely trimming small sections to align with the top, until the entire quilt is trimmed.
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