Just call me CHEAP, but I use narrow painters tape. With the tape still on the roll, I take a very sharp knife or one of those tools which has a blade, I suppose they are called a box blade, and cut through about 6 - 8 layers of the tape. Then I turn the "spool" about 8" and make another cut. This is then removed all together in a thick layer and placed beside my 1/4 pressure foot to create a ridge for the fabric to follow. (I have measured to be sure that I have this placed correctly to achieve the 1/4" seam). This strip of tape extends to the front and back of the pressure foot and is absolutely great to have when sewing strips because it keeps the fabric straight behind the pressure foot after it has been sewn and helps feed the fabric several inches in front of the pressure foot. My experience has been that keeping the fabric straight behind the foot helps keep the fabric from getting messed up in front. Having several inches of this tape ridge in front of the foot helps me sew faster because I now am not watching the needle, instead I am keeping an eye on several inches of fabric and guiding it in a straight line before it is even close to being sewn. I have also seen a lady using this ridge of tape on her ruler. She just placed this at the 2 1/2" mark on her ruler in several places to butt up against several layers of fabric to be cut into strips. I have not tried this just yet, probably because I could not easily find the roll of tape.