Hello Ladies,

I am relatively new to quilting. I am ready to quilt the top and I picked a quilt design that I think will work nicely. I have Mylar to make the stencil of the design, but how do I cut through the stencil neatly to get a good home made stencil? (any suggestions would be appreciated)

Marian

They do make a tool for " burning" the pattern out, but I have used really sharp scissors for the ones I have made. I suggest you have a pair just for that...kinda like one for our material and one for paper thing. watch out for any crossover lines, otherwise..it's like cutting paperdolls. :D

I've never had any luck making templates from mylar so I use an alternate method. I use the really fine netting like you find in bridal veils. It doesn't cost much and a yard of it will make a lot of patterns. I copy my pattern onto freezer paper, then place a piece of the netting on top of the pattern and re-copy it using a fine permanent magic marker. You can use these over and over again, with whatever marker you want for the fabric your'e using. It even shows up just fine on black fabric. Just put a few well placed pins around the pattern on your quilt top and it makes it nice and stable for transfering.

Having said all that, I hope you're able to find a good method for making your mylar templates. :) I think maybe I just didn't have the patience to keep trying after messing them up so many times! :P

When I'm not in one of the shaky days, I use my craft knife to cut the major parts of the pattern out then use the sharp scissors to do the fine tuning or a piece of fine sand paper. The netting has been talked about before, I think some have had great results. I haven't tried it yet, but I will soon.

Happy Quilting,
Sharon

I saw a knife the other day with twin blades, specially designed for cutting stencil chanels, it is going on my I must have that list. So it would probably be available over there.

I don,t know what Mylar is but I use milk bottle or ice cream container plastic to make quilting templates out of. If I get really desperate or can't find a plastic container big enough I will use light cardboard :) Needs must :lol: