quiltsfor

I needed to do an accurate 3/8" seam in a Quilt As You Go quilt that I am assembling.

I put a line of painters tape on my sewing machine bed to mark a 3/8" line and then added a second strip on top of it to make it have an edge. Then I thought, what am I thinking. I really needed something taller, as what I was seaming was two quilt sandwiches back to back. In total I was handling 4 layers of fabric with some seams in them, and 2 layers of quilt batting. I would be needing to do numerous seams and just the thought of keeping it lined up with the tape line was tiring, because it would be slow going and time consuming.

Then I had a light bulb moment.

I got out one of my cutting rulers a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" and lining up the edge of the ruler with the above painters tape that marked off the 3/8", I then taped down the other three sides of the cutting ruler with painters tape to my sewing machine bed. It created a lip of about 1/4" high for me to run my quilt sandwich against. I've had a perfect 3/8" seam ever since. I don't have to try to keep it against a small ledge of tape and keep trying to keep it straight. I just butt the pinned together sandwich up against the taped down ruler and sew. Couldn't be easier! Fast and accurate.

Doing a 1/4" isn't hard as my sewing foot makes a perfect 1/4" seam and I don't need any markings except when doing diagonal sewing for snowballs or HST etc. and then I have 1/4" marking tape already down my sewing table bed that is easy to eyeball with the fabric point. But with the 3/8" seams I'm definitely going to keep the taped ruler idea handy.