Free Motion Quilting with Rulers: A Giveaway Winner

I've pulled a winner for the True Grips giveaway. Congratulations to Rebecca Grace, aka The Cheeky Cognoscenti to get a pack of these self adhesive silicone gripping dots. Rebecca, I hope you give these things a good workout on your rulers.

And what good is a blog post without a picture or two? Since I'm out of town, I'll post these:



I think I'm on a search for the perfect straight ruler. I had hoped this one above was going to fit the bill, but it's dud. I love the tabs for accurate placing of stitches in the ditch and 1/4 away, but it wasn't cut properly. The edge of the cut should line up with the 1/4 marking and it's off. I'll be contacting the maker and seeing if this is just a defect in need of replacement. If not, I'll continue my search.


I do most of my quilting and much of my sewing with polyester thread because it's pretty, strong, and has no lint. But for my recent pieced quilt, I used a lot of the popular cotton thread on the market. It's a lovely thread (You know the one with all the buzz....) but it's still cotton and I wanted to show you how much lint was produced. Clean your machines, folks.


And finally, another shot of my very own ruler creep. Just because I can and because I love him. Don't let ruler creep slow down your work with rulers on your sewing machines! Use quilting gloves as you quilt and try some of the non-slip products on the market, like the True Grips, sandpaper dots, velcro, etc.

I can't wait to get back home and show you the work I've continued to do on my recent pieced sampler.

15 comments:

  1. Glad to hear about your ruler adventures, Amy...thank you

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  2. Love your ruler creep . . . he looks like he's FUN! After all these years of marriage (46), the laughter is what keeps me falling in love with my HH (Handsome Hubby) on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis!

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  3. Haha!! Great pic of your honey. :D

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  4. I use that ruler, and havent had a problem with it working for ditch stitching...strange, just looking at your picture it seems like it should be ok...hope you get a new one if its a defect.

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    1. If you look carefully at the picture, there's a little more than 1/16th of an inch between the marking and the cut edge. It throws the spacing off when I want 1/2 or 1/4 inch spacings between lines. At first I thought maybe Handiquilter had a larger than 1/2 inch ruler foot, but I also have their Versa Tool and that has an accurate cut for the 1/4 inch spacing. The cut and the marking should be right in line. I'm thinking I got a flawed ruler.

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  5. Good luck in your quest................

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  6. I like the "little one" from Deloa Jones. It's small enough to fit in your hand and the tabs line up in the ditch instead of having to keep etched lines on the seam. I found this ruler helped a lot with ditch stitching and helped with the creeping. The smaller size works well for blocks.

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    1. I am fond of the tabs for the SID! I'll have to check on DeLoa's. One straight ruler I have is nice and accurate, but has a shape that makes anyone see it giggle....especially my hubby. Thought I ought to replace it.

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  7. Amy... this hit home with me. I have the VersaTool and on the left hand straight edge, it looks exactly like the ruler you are showing a picture of. I would like to see a picture of your VT to compare to mine as you say yours is accurate. It's a half inch cut out, but the markings don't line up on mine. So what is going on here?? My VT did come with 2 sticky dots on the back

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  8. Amy.. if you hear back from HQ about the ruler lines, please let us know. Thank you!

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