I purchased a grace II frame on Craigslist and have it set up ready to quilt using a Viking/Husqvarna Mega Quilter. Somehwere I heard that I can take a quilting template and photocopy it and lay it on the template boards of the grace II frame and use the stylist to quilt those designs...has anyone tried this or should I forget the idea and just purchase the templates intended for the frame? :roll:

I have a Little Gracie II, as well. I gave the wooden stylus with paper pantographs a try, but I found that I had a hard time matching the stylus to the paper. My advice, though -- try it, and see how you do. There's some free templates out there that you can practice with and see if it works for you.

My new machine (a Bailey) comes with a laser stylus; I haven't tried it yet, but I'm curious to see how well that goes. I believe the Grace company has a laser for sale on their site for a fairly reasonable price; it might be worth looking into.

thanks so much for your information. I see that Grace co is now selling some type of plastic instead of the wood templates. I see the wood ones pirced much cheaper than original.Needless to say I am new at trying the machine quilting.

So am I :) I've been debating buying the plastic or wood templates from Grace myself, but they're kind of expensive, and also somewhat limited in styles. That's why I'm so interested in the laser idea -- seems like all you should need to do is print out your pattern, which seems inexpensive.

One place I was looking at for buying wood templates is http://www.rns-design.com -- they have some really beautiful designs there. You have to have a special stylus to use with them, though.

Also, I don't know if you're familiar with the various groups on Yahoo, but I would highly recommend checking out the following two groups:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Gracemachineframe/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/homequiltingsystems/

They're great resources as far as information and help. Additionally, people often sell products in the database section -- you may find some wooden templates for a good price in there.

soooo helpful...thanks bunches I will check out the sites

I have a Gracie frame. I have a laser stylus that hooks on my machine. I use the paper patterns. All you need is one. Then you just copy as many as you need to fit you quilt. Then you just lay the pattern sheets out on the shelf that comes with the frame, they all make a continuous pattern. You just follow the pattern with the light from the stylus and the machine does all the work. I love mine. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the information. I