Free Motion Monday Quilting Adventure: Ruler Work- Week 4

It's the last post of my ruler work series! I love ruler work when free motion quilting- the contrast between lines and curvier free motion designs like swirls or feathers is just fabulous. It's safe to say that posts here will continue to feature the technique. I hope you've learned from this month's series and will continue to use ruler work in your quilts.

I started a new customer quilt this weekend and am using continuous curves on the center panel of hexies. Continuous curves this small are a bit fiddly and can also be done without a ruler, but the result isn't usually as uniform as with a ruler.



Freehand continuous curves can be treated much like a grid-based design and that is the focus of next month's Monday series. This seems like a good transition, don't you think?

As I say in the video, I'm not too thrilled with this ruler set I used. I had recently bought them (nested ovals) but I could have sworn I had ordered nested circles. I don't like the nested idea. I think I'd rather have separate circles. You have to tape the nested ones together to have enough to grasp with your hand. To top it all off, the edges were very rough, in some places they were downright sharp and snaggy. It pays to get quality rulers.

Trying out my rulers for the right size.

But I needed something smaller than the smallest semicircle I had in my set from Accents in Design. A one or one and a half inch circle would have been ideal.


That's about all I have for this week, except to announce our winner of the Continuous Curve ruler set from Accents in Design!

Jasmine, who blogs over at Quilt Kisses is our lucky winner! I'll be sending her information in to Carol this week to get her rulers on their way.

Next month there will be a new giveaway as we work on grid-based designs together.

This is the last week to link up for ruler work and I am hoping some more of you have been giving this technique a try. Doesn't need to be fancy, but we want to see what folks are doing with rulers and free motion quilting! Though fancy is good too!

If you've missed any of the Free Motion Monday posts, you can find them on the Free Motion Mondays page.

Here's the guidelines for the link party:

For the linky this week, link up a post of  ruler work you've done, if any. If you haven't done any, feel free to use a ruler to draw out any line based designs that you'd like to explore. You can use rotary cutting rulers for drawing. If you've written a post about wanting to do these types of designs, you can post that too!

Some quick rules:
  • Keep your post relevant to this quilt along please. Spammy posts will be deleted.
  • Make sure you link up to the individual post, not your home page as nobody wants to have to search around for the post if they're a little late to the party.
  • Reciprocate! Link back to this post somewhere in your post. You've got to dance with the one who took you to the party, so make sure you link back.
  • Don't be a wall-flower. (Talking to myself here too. In person I am so stinking shy!) Visit the other links, be sociable, and leave comments.
  • Please make sure you leave me a way to contact you if you are a no-reply commenter, especially if you ask a question.
Don't forget to bookmark this blog, follow, or sign it up in your favorite feed reader. Like the facebook page (I do post some short things on it pretty regularly), or even check out my Pinterest boards, which includes one devoted to examples of ruler work.  I'll be visiting you too!

Today is Memorial Day in the USA; remember the fallen, those who have served and those who are still serving in our armed forces.

I'm linking this up with Hexie Weekend as suggested by Angie (A Nudge).


14 comments:

  1. I'm so enjoying your videos! I just have to buy that foot for my Bernina and a ruler and get to it. Thank you! I invite you to link to Hexie Weekend. Lots of us would love to see more of how to quilt out hexies. They look fabulous the way you are doing them.

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  2. Once again, thanks for sharing your experiences with us. And I am super excited to try out the curved rulers from the giveaway. Thank you and Accents in Design.

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  3. I've just finished doing my first "real" curved crosshatching with one of the Accents in Design rulers — now I'm thinking I'll have to get more of them! LOL! I wish I could use a foot like yours, Amy, but I'm making do with one of my Bernina feet, though it would be nice if it were smaller. To get the height necessary to keep the ruler from slipping under the foot, I'm using a curved plastic foot, and it's wider than I'd like. Still, I'm happy with the results of what I've done. :)

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  4. Nice! I still haven't tried any ruler work, but I know when I'm ready this is where I need to come. :)

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  5. Hi there! I just wanted to say thanks for all of the inspiration and instruction... Your work is amazing and I really appreciate all the time you spend on your posts and videos. I've sent a lot of people your way ... A long arm may never be in the cards for me, but you make fantastic quilting seem accessible anyway!!

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  6. Whoop whoop Jasmine, congratulations!!!
    I so wish I could sew along with you Monday's, Amy! Live is getting in the way here! :-)
    Esther

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  7. love the continuous curve on the hexies! Great job, yet again!

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  8. Wow!!! Awesome!! I'm digging out some rulers now!! I hope I can find a foot like that to work with my machine!

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  9. Reading your blog has inspired me to try quilting with rulers but I own and love my Juki. I have tried the rulers from Accents In Design and they are very well made but the Velcro strip raises them off the fabric just enough that I have to be really careful that my standard Juki foot does not slip under the ruler. After much searching I found a quilt shop in WV that will modify one of my free motion feet to a ruler foot. I can't wait to get my foot back and really put the rulers to work.
    Jane

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  11. After reading your previous posts, I did get two of the AOD rulers. They were way easier to use than I expected. I look forward to figuring out how and when to incorporate their use in my quilting. I did use them with another quilt after the one I linked up but not as extensively as with the linked quilt. Thanks again for sharing all your adventures!

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  12. I am so glad you leave the linky open for a few days. I am happy to link up my first project made with my new rulers.

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  13. I don't have any rulers so have not been able to participate in this one, but I have gained a wealth of information for the future when I do get some rulers...thank you for doing another great series, I have enjoyed it immensely...

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