I use a piece of Headliner--foam backed knit fabric that is made to go in the ceiling of a car. It's available at Joann's for around $15 a yard (I think, it's been a while). Much cheaper than Steady Betty and you can have any size you need.

Wow, what product were you looking at?? I paid nowhere near $90 for my steady betty.

Me either and I have the largest size bought at a quilt show. You can use a 60% off coupon at JoAnn to buy one.

Get a board (I used a shelf from a little cabinet) & cover it with two layers of cotton batting or 4 layers of cotton flannel....cover the batting/flannel with duck or medium density canvas ( I used a cheap muslin that felt real heavy). This is the perfect ironing surface & easily replaced when it gets soiled. If you want the silver heat resistant cover...use a piece from an old ironing board cover...usually the part at the wide end of the board is in fairly good shape.

http://www.amazon.com/Steady-Betty-1...sortBy=helpful
This is the link that shows the Steady Betty for $90.00. And 29 cents! Our quilting group has the foam on their Big Board, and I do not like it. Maybe a small piece of it would be OK, but for large pieces, I want the fabric to pull up and over the board without resistance.

As for seams, I usually try to make the scant quarter inch seam. I've heard that if you make all your seams the same, it won't matter too much. But I made a quilt from "Man Sewing" which joined a lot of strips, then cut that resulting piece into equal squares. By using the scant seam, my piece was wide enough so that I couldn't get three of the squares out of one piece. What a waste. I did save it though. I had to piece a few of the ends of strips. When I press those seams open, they don't show much. After the quilting, you won't know, but that was a lot of work!

I agree with Peckish...the cotton duck canvas over 1 layer of cotton batting "grabs" those blocks really well :)

There are two types of 1/4" presser foot type attachments. I found this out the hard way. There's the regular kind and the quilter's 1/4" presser foot. I was in the middle of a project and had to purchase a replacement. Wouldn't you know the regular quilter's assistant was out and as luck would have it, I purchased the wrong one. My block was smaller on the side I pieced after the replacement!

The large one is here: http://www.joann.com/steady-betty-15...y/2409084.html and there is a coupon to use on it to make the price lower. Amazon isn't always the best place to buy especially direct from the dealer.

Love your philosophy!