Hello! I feel like I've been absent from the Blogosphere for ages!!
You know how it goes - if you work too hard you end up getting sick. You can tell I'm not well when I can't find the energy to sew a stitch, but when I don't have the strength to even leave comments on my friends blogs you know I'm really sick. It's okay because I'm on the mend now so I hope you'll excuse me blowing my nose every five minutes while I'll get on with my show and tell.

Last weekend I had a play with this little toy- a Ratchet Rotary Compass Cutter.

It cuts the most perfect circles from 2 - 8.5 inches ( though I jiggled a few screws, turned the compass point around and was able to get a 9.5 circle)

Just for the sake of playing around I attempted to sew a circle into another piece of fabric by cutting a circle half an inch bigger. I didn't pin it and just used my quarter inch foot. It almost worked except for the pucker on the right hand side. I'm curious to have another go one day with my Curve Master Foot, and maybe a bit of spray starch to steady the fabric a bit, but at the time I was distracted by other ideas and ended up playing in my scrap baskets - to see what this little test block grew into pop over to Basket Full of Scraps.

The main reason I pulled my Ratchet Rotary Compass Cutter ( that sounds so wonderfully important) was to do a bit of fussy cutting. No more trying to line a bowl up against little marks on the fabric, or cutting freezer paper circles but then after ironing finding that they've moved half an inch. I just stuck my compass pin into the center of the design, did a swivel with a flourish and hey presto a perfect circle...

and a perfect center for my dahlia quilt!!

You've got to love Jennifer Paganelli's Sis Boom fabrics for fussy cutting, so many beautiful shapes and patterns that are perfect for featuring. Beautiful!
Cheerio.