How To Use Older Quilting Templates

On Monday we learned how to slice a beautiful Pointy Eight Dresden Plate quilt block and next Monday we'll learn how to quilt information technology with many awesome free move quilting designs including ruler foot quilting!

So today let'due south learn more about ruler foot quilting and how to get started with this new style of gratuitous motion quilting on our domicile auto with a new Quilting Basics Video:

Click Here to find the pattern for Cake #2 so you can do ruler foot quilting on a real quilt cake.

Await? Did I say ruler quilting is some other form of free move quilting? What?

Yeah, a ruler foot is just a type of darning foot and then that makes this some other class of free movement quilting.

That means you can quilt with rulers a fleck, fix your ruler aside and wiggle around with Stippling, then option upwardly your ruler again and go back to quilting directly lines, which is exactly what I did in the video.

This too means that whatever settings you use for gratuitous motion quilting are the aforementioned settings y'all should use for ruler foot quilting. For me that's run up length 0 (or the everyman setting) and the feed dogs covered with a Queen Supreme Slider.

But this likewise ways that your stitch length and quality is 100% upwards to you. You still have to balance the speed of your hands moving the quilt with the speed of your needle bouncing up and down. My best communication when getting used to ruler human foot quilting is to quilt slowly. Movement your hands slowly and steadily, continue the ruler / template in position on the quilt, and against the ruler foot and brand smooth, steady movements as y'all quilt.

Information technology's skillful to quilt slowly because information technology will feel easy to push the quilt under the needle. The additional ruler / template on the quilt will human activity as an extra grip, giving you more control over the quilt movement. Information technology will feel very easy to shift with the help of the ruler, and very temping to motion it quickly.

Simply that will result in big stitches so take it tiresome until you lot tin can residue that extra hand speed with extra machine speed.

What to Watch Out for with Ruler Foot Quilting

At the first of the video I shared the about important tip for ruler foot quilting – never drop your needle with the human foot in the up position.

When you lot drop your needle to bring your bobbin thread to the quilt surface, e'er double and triple bank check that your foot is in the downwardly position.

Accept a look at the divergence between the needle area on my Grace Qnique 14+ longarm on the left and my Bernina 1230 on the correct. Run across the departure in the needle bar?

On the home automobile, I have a long needle bar that sticks out more than ane/ii inch to the correct. The needle zipper on the longarm is completely unlike, which a small screw sitting almost flush with the metal rod to a higher place the needle.

When your ruler human foot is in the up position, information technology has a tall enough base that it could potentially hit your needle bar and Smash! in that location goes your needle bar, your timing, and potentially another very expensive things in the top of your machine.

So relieve yourself a lot of money and hassle and never, ever drib your needle with your ruler human foot in the upwards position. Like shooting fish in a barrel peasy!

Explore Ruler Foot Quilting

At present what can we practise with ruler foot quilting? How can this assist united states of america quilt our quilts?

A ruler or template basically acts as a guide for the foot. As yous push the ruler, plus quilt through the machine, it gives you a guide to go along the human foot in the correct place every bit y'all quilt.

Instead of veering off in wild wobbly lines similar a drunken sailor, you can now quilt perfectly straight, evenly spaced lines without marking by using a straight edge ruler as a guide.

You can also quilt perfectly circular circles, arcs, and any other shape that'due south been cutting on a ruler. Call back of the ruler equally an assistant and it, combined with the ruler foot, allow you to quilt certain shapes perfectly.

This also means that quilting rulers are a new thing to collect. Oh yes, every ruler opens a new world of shapes and designs for you to quilt, just a good place to showtime is with straight lines, arcs, and circles and you can find rulers to quilt all of these shapes in the Dresden Plate Template Set.

This set of templates can cutting dozens of Dresden Plates AND can exist used for ruler pes quilting – how'south that for multitasking!

The key is keeping the ruler in position on the quilt and side by side to the ruler foot. I similar using True Grips which help keep the templates in place so they don't slip equally I quilt. I as well like wearing Machingers Gloves, which I always wear while quilting, but they seem especially handy for gripping both the quilt and the template at the same fourth dimension.

After you get your templates set up to get the adjacent step is just to practise! I'd starting time with a small block or fat quarter sized practice sandwich. This will feel only like gratuitous motility quilting, but managing the additional ruler on top of the quilt might have awhile to get used to.

I do think direct lines are the easiest so requite them a go commencement. Marker some straight lines on your quilt as a guideline, then try quilting evenly spaced lines 1/4, ane/2 and 3/iv inches apart.

In one case you lot feel comfortable with straight lines, co-operative out with other designs. Hither I've used Template #7 from the Dresden Plate Template set to quilt overlaping shells. I marked straight lines 1 inch apart in guild to infinite these shapes perfectly:

The lines etched on the dorsum of the rulers will aid guide your ruler placement and I really recall a quilting ruler is only as good as the guidelines provided on the back. Those guidelines help you align the ruler then you tin easily quilt the same shape repeatedly and create cool stacking designs like all the pictures above.

And then what do you remember nearly ruler foot quilting? Have you always tried this blazon of free motion quilting before? Make sure to post your questions to the comments below!

Let's go quilt,

Leah 24-hour interval