our modern quilting tools
 

I thought this was kinda funny. Last night my parents came up and i was showing mom how my cracked 16 inch ruler is now 3 different rulers. i showed her the eight and 1/2 square one and said it would be perfect for my rag quilts. she laughed and said remembered when i made your nephews their jean rag quilts? (oldest nephew is 29) i used one of their golden books - remember those? I thought about and how we always seems to find something that can be used around the house for quilting and we make do with what we have sometimes.

Sandpaper!!! The best thing for making applique templates and in fact may take the place of the square rulers for HST! (At least I will try that....) The nice thing is that sandpaper doesn't slide when you are tracing your template onto the fabric.

Also the old standby - freezer paper. I buy tons of that.

I do remember my mom sitting at the kitchen table with a pad of paper, scissors, ruler and sketching out her next quilt, making the templates and cutting it all by hand! She made a lot of bed size quilts without the first gadget. Love my mom!

I had to empty out part of my attic and found a box of old quilt magazines and looking through an old one - was a page of "new" gadgets, etc. - on it was a rotary cutter and mat - I am not sure of the year - but it was in the 80's.

Quilting has come a long way in a few years. Thank goodness! I guess I look at quilting and it's tools alot like other things in my house. 45 years ago my Dad's wood shop was VERY different from today's wood shop. He could still work the old tools as well as the new ones and I too pride myself in being able to quilt the "old" ways and the new ways. I find myself, like my Dad did, combining the two "eras" and selecting what works best for me.

However I have to share that my Hubby has snitched 2 of my quilting rulers to use for his projects - not to mention I've snitched lets see, aluminum washers (curtain weights), various zip ties (works great for turning tubes) etc.

And I remember when Rotary stuff hit the market. I was skeptical - but took a class and fell in love with them. I used them for home decor before quilting.

Has anybody considered using bicycle clips for free-motion quilting? Would hold the rolled up quilt really well.
http://www.amazon.com/SunLite-91715m...d_sim_sbs_sg_2

I have Quilters Newletter magazines from the 1970's which are printed on newsprint. Quilting has come a long way since then.

I had clips and decided that I didn't like them. They kept catching on things.

Sandpaper also will quickly sharpen your scissors; just cut a few strips of sandpaper with them and it sharpens them. I normally just cut about a dozen small slits across the sandpaper and keep on cutting.

I don't know how the sandpaper can replace the rulers for HST but if you lay your blocks on the sandpaper before marking the lines down the center it keeps the fabric still. You still need the ruler to square it up after you've made the HST.

I love the little plastic containers with the locking lids. I put my magnetic pin holder in it and take it to my classes and the pins all stay inside of the container. I get to my class and can just open the lid or take the magnetic holder out and use it that way. Works great and keeps the pins where they belong.

I originally used bicycle clamps for FMQ but then discovered the resulting roll made it much more difficult to maneuver on my regular sewing machine. I now use the "fluff and stuff" method and it's much easier. Just finished a queen size on my regular machine.