What's your favorite quilting notion/tool?
 

I am always looking to add helpful tools and notions to my collection. My favorite is a 6"by 24" creative grids ruler, what's yours? Wondering if the clover clips are useful and interested in knowing what your favorite item is.

Mine is the 6 1/2" x 12 1/2" Creative Grids ruler. I have been using it constantly since I got it. Love the 24 1/2" one too, but almost too large for my cutting area.

Blue painter's tape. I wrap it around my hand a couple of times, sticky side out, and stick it next to my sewing machine. It's great for collecting thread ends! Also can be stuck on a quilt as a straight-line guide for quilting.

Mine is a 6.5"x18.5" Fingergard ruler. Don't believe they are made anymore. It keeps your fingers away from the rotary cutter. Would love to buy more of them!

Anita

Clover clips - I now have about 70 of them and at times all are in use for different projects. I sometimes use them instead of pins.

Love the Clover clips. Love my Creative Grids rulers (I have several) - just picked up the Wedding Ring templates by Creative Grids, designed by Judy Niemeyer.. Love my different seam rippers, stilettos, and my pin cushions. Love my Clover needle dome (holds threaded needles).
I like my Studio cutter.

Oh yeah I use the tape a lot too. Comes in very handy!

I have tried and tried to use the wonder clips a friend gifted me and I don't care for them.

I think my favorite quilting thing is the huge cutting mat that fits the top of my desk almost perfectly. Then after that it is my sewing machine. Bernina's are the best!

Oh thin flower head pins and of course my newest patterns.

I have been wondering about the flower head pins. I have seen them around the web a lot lately. I am also ordering a bigger mat tomorrow.

The quilting aid I use the most is a 5" x 10" ruler by Kimberly Einmo. Since I sew with lots of pre cuts, that ruler is the perfect size. Lately, I have been making blocks with lots of tiny pieces (e.g., a 12" block with 100 pieces). The small ruler is perfect.

As for the Clover clips, I love them. I bought a small package of 10, I think, and was not too impressed; but later, I was able to get 100 for half price. Having enough clips for the entire quilt really made a difference. Now, I always use them to hold my binding in place. I wonder now how I ever did without them and can't believe that I once didn't like them.

I use the Clover Clips also but only need two at a time. I like to adjust my binding as I stitch. I like my little serrated edge scissors for applique.

My electric seam ripper is my favorite tool - fast and easy when you make a mistake (which I do often). I love the Clover Clips too.

My favorite tool is my rotary tool and mat. Recently, I quilted a lap size quilt that my grandmother had made. She had cut all of the pieces using scissors and card stock pattern pieces. She had hand pieced the entire thing. As I used my LA for quilting, I cried and laughed thinking of her. She was still piecing quilts when she died at the age of 93. I believe she was smiling down on me and enjoying watching me quilt. Loved her fortitude.
Sandy

My favorites are my clover clips, my accuquilt GO, my gingher cutting mat and most of all - my machines!!

I have three
1. My That Patchwork Place Bias Square 8" ruler....for squaring up blocks, HSTs, Log cabin blocks, cutting squares.
2. My tiny Sticky Note Pad...as seen below for creating the perfect 1/4" seam.
3. My Clover awl...as seen below for a pusher, stabilizer, controller.

Jan in VA

Right now, Amazon has 50 small Clover clips for under $13.00. That is a great deal! I've been using several of mine while making fabric covered rope bowls. They work great. Difficult to pick my one favorite notion.

Gosh how to pick just one? My favorite ruler is the one I need for what I'm working on- so thankful for them and my rotary cutters and Gingher mat. My awl,F & P marking pencil, surgical steel seam ripper, clover clips, small scissors, and my little light that fastens to my machine and shines right down on the needle area where I need it. Can't pick just one!

I can't survive without the leather coin thimbles by Clover...I do a lot of hand quilting but I also use them in finishing binding, closing seams and more. Does anyone use any of the under finger helpers for quilting? Can you feel the needle to know you went through all the way with any of those?

My favorite tool is my Easy Kut Spring Action Scissors (thread snips). I have about 3 pair that I keep in the sewing room at various places. I can't live without them.

1. SlideLock ruler both sizes
2. Go die cut machine
3. Elmers School glue
4. Clover Wonder clips
5. Frixon pens

I love my Gypsy cutter, but the June Tailor Shape Cut is the best ever!

It took me a while to get used to a thimble and now I can't do anything without one. I prefer the soft light brown deerskin ones. Since I quilt with both hands I also wear one on the thumb of my left hand while quilting on a frame. I even need a thimble to hand sew a button on.

I love all my stuff - but the one thing that is not just for sewing that I use all of the time is my hemostat - especially when I'm trying to pull my bobbin thread up to the top - perfect for grabbing it with my fmq gloves on.

My daughter's rotary cutter we bought her for Christmas. What a difference compared to scissors. It makes it so easy to be accurate.
Rodney

I don't get excited over much of anything. I suppose my favorite would be the Starmaker 5 template because that angle isn't on other rulers or cutting boards, so I need another tool to get that angle.

My all time favorite tool is my Singer 221 Featherweight. If all I'm doing is straight stitching, it is my go-to machine; second is the June Taylor Shape Cut (nothing beats it for cutting strips and subcutting squares and rectangles), and third is my Karen Kay Buckley Perfect Scissors (I have two sets of all three sizes).

I love all of my tools but the cool thing about the Flower head pins is you can mark on the flower with a sharpie and make some custom pins! L (left), R (right), numbers (for rows), T(top), B (bottom). When I am putting a really complicated quilt together this helps a lot.

Venicepinky: I use a little spoon. Just hold it so the bowl cradles your thumb, with the handle towards your palm. You use it to make a tiny ridge in the quilt that you push your needle through. You can find tutorials on line. It made my hand quilting so much better and pain free!

I love the Clover Clips, too, but my favorite thing is my 1/4" foot for my machine! Next would be the battery powered seam ripper!

I use the small red Clover clips instead of pins when I can. I took me awhile to use them, I thought at first they were just clips to hold binding. I now reach for one instead of a pin.

Did you not know about rotary cutters until now?

Clover Mini Iron
Ott Light

I know this is going to sound silly but, I consider my two hands my best tool. I have thought many times about having a top professionally quilted, but have resisted the temptation because I feel a quilt is more "ME" when I do it myself.

I love my starch! I make quilts with lots of small pieces..and it makes all the difference.

I like them but last week I melted the flower heads on five of them while pressing. :(

That so many people like the Clover clips is interesting. I bought two boxes of them but they're now gathering dust. I like to adjust my binding as I go so I can keep the stitching close to the edge and found the clips got in the way.

My latest favorite was gifted to me by a fellow quilter. It is by Sewology and are called Hot Pink Arch clip scissors. I call them Parrot scissors since the blades remind me of a parrot's beak. My machine does not have an automatic thread snipper, just the blade on the side. The parrot scissors, save me about 1 1/2 inches of thread every time I cut. In paperpiecing, that amounts to alot of thread since many seams are only about an inch long.

Clever idea!

I use bobby pins for binding. It works fine and is very cheap!

Doesn't sound silly at all to me, and i agree, hands top my list as a favorite tool, too. No substitute in many cases. My favorite notions are the ones that come out of my head when designing the next quilt I want to make or coming up with the solution to an unexpected problem when quilting.