Cheap circles
 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]597371[/ATTACH]For those of us doing ruler work the rulers are super
expensive especially when we don’t know which ones we will really use. So I did a little experiment today. The circle rulers I have are smaller than what I may want to use. So what do I have that is at least 1/4” high. Plates won’t work they are not high enough and slippery. Now my day starts with coffee. Yep the lid is high enough. So here is my experiment. I do have to say placement needs to be with the edge down Therese the hopping foot slips under. Not good.

Now that is really clever! Thank you for sharing the idea!

Very clever, thank you for sharing !

Neat idea but I need the needle stops on my quilting rulers.

What about us non-coffee drinkers? Guess we'd better make friends with more neighbors, so we can beg a lid to try this!

Several cds glued together makes a good circle ruler as well.

Rob

Thanks for the very clever idea!

Great thinking! Instead of paying the high cost for a straight edge ruler I asked a glass shop to cut me a 3"x14" piece of thick plexiglass, cost me less than $14.

Cari

Because I am a novice beginning to learn about ruler work on a borrowed longarm I experimented to find a way to be more secure for not getting the ruler into machine needle area. I only needed about 6 inches of straight lines for a snowball block and used a paperback book as my "ruler". It helped get nice straight short lines for my stitch in the ditch project.

Creative idea! TFS

When I draw a quilting design like melon seeds, I use every saucer up to pizza pan to find the right circle size! Sometimes I use 6 or more different "template" sizes in one quilt. As I say, this is for drawing, then I hand quilt, but look around the house, you could save a ton of money!

When I draw a quilting design like melon seeds, I use every saucer up to pizza pan to find the right circle size! Sometimes I use 6 or more different "template" sizes in one quilt. As I say, this is for drawing, then I hand quilt, but look around the house, you could save a ton of money!

And I'll bet you can find other containers like the coffee can with appropriate lids OR buy a can of coffee, keep the lid and put the coffee in a plastic bag to donate to your neighbour!

Great idea and you sure are creative. Thanks for sharing.

As my mother used to say, 'necessacity is the mother of invention.' In this case, the necessacity of not paying those exorberant prices for those rulers.

Great ideas everyone! Especially Granny G, for coming up with the idea.

What a great idea.

The problem with the coffee lid is that there is nothing pressing the batting down in the center of it. Only the edges press down into the quilt. That's why you get that puffy look to your circle. I think Rob's idea of gluing several CDs together would work better. It needs to be completely flat.

The reason my circle was so puffy is that the batting scrap I used is a very high loft about one inch in thickness. If I had used a thinner batt it would not be so high much thicker than the lid I used. But thanks for all the responses. Great ideas.

I went a craft store and purchased those wood shapes, circles, squares, triangles, crescents and stars. They are about one-eighth inch thick. Glued two together, they work perfectly. Drew lines on them with the ruler so I would know where the center is, where is one-quarter, one-third, etc.

great tip, thanks

This is exactly what I intend to do.