Cutting Corners: Making Perfect Rectangles.

Rectangles need to have perfect right angles on each corner, or the final product ends up sadly misshapen. You could use t-squares, drafting triangles, gridded mats, and the like to get a perfect shape. Or you can make one just using: a ruler, a pencil, and a paperback book (the newer the better). Here is.....

How to cut out perfect rectangles without fancy schmancy crafting stuff.

For this tutorial, I am going to make a landscape-directional rectangle of 11 cm x 20 cm.

First, use two adjacent sides of the book to make the first corner. I made my markings and then moved the book up and over a little so you can see the pencil lines a bit better.

Next, use the ruler to extend one of the lines (I like to do the bottom one first myself) . Remember: first draw, then measure. Here you can see how I drew it out longer than I needed (first draw) and then went back to mark off the 20 cm point (then measure).

Align the book as shown in the picture below. The bottom edge of the book is perfectly in line with the bottom edge of the rectangle, and the corner of the book is touching your pencil mark.

Using the side of the book, draw your next line. Again, I moved the book a bit up and over so you can see the pencil marks better. Be careful when drawing against the opening of the book. If you press to hard against the pages, the pencil may slip inside and mark up your book.

Measure both sides of the rectangle and mark each one.

Connect the two dots. If the dots are too far apart to use your ruler to connect them in one go, measure up from the bottom line in several places. This gives you a bunch of dots to connect. The more dots, the greater the chance of the line being straight.

Check your work. You can either use the book to make sure the other corners are perfectly square.....

.... or you can measure and make sure the line you just drew (the "connecting the dots" line) has the correct measurement.

If your rectangle isn't square, check your corners to see if you warbled a bit. Fix the warble and recheck your corners. If you still can't figure it out, try using a different book- yours could be that one book in a million that happens to be out of alignment.

PS- Yes, it is a great book. Gaskell is one of my favorite authors. She is like Charles Dickens, only more feisty and more shocking (for a Victorian that is).