Julienm1

Maybe you already do this. I use cereal boxes to make my own templates. Cheaper than spending $10-25.00 on other templates. I make a copy of the template provided in the pattern. Glue it on the cereal box. Weigh it down over night, cut it out, and have a perfect template to trace my pattern. Many times I do need to buy the acrylic template but try to use this method especially if pattern says "paper template pattern provided." More money for fabric and cute sewing notions.
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Onebyone

I don't buy box cereal but I do buy the packages of $1 thin cutting boards at the Dollar Tree and use that to glue on the paper template. . If I have to make a lot of cuts I buy the acrylic template if available.

Iceblossom

I usually have a few cardboard pieces that fat quarters were wrapped around in my sewing kit as well -- nice little straight edges until cut up!

bearisgray

I use plastic for templates because I like to see what is "underneath" -

I try to be aware of what will be showing in the finished item.

annievee

I like to do plastic also so I can see print on fabric.

Iceblossom

I also buy the sheets of the gridded plastic and have graph paper always on hand (which can be very nicely taped over the cardboard). There are certainly times when you want clear, but I make various little disposable tools throughout my projects where card board is very desirable -- like when you are near an iron! The other thing is the thickness of the cardboard is very nice, you rarely cut into it and with the plastic I'm having to line up a ruler next to the template to actually cut against.

When I first started quilting, I was about being very precise in my cutting and piecing, in the last 10 years or so I've switched to sewing/cutting large and trimming down for accuracy. Whenever possible I am using strip piecing/cutting methods and then subcutting the strips, as opposed to making hundreds of separate triangles for example. Then when you consider some of my construction methods are due to vision concerns, I've gone from basically never using templates to using multiple ones per project.

Sometimes I make what I call a "snub" out of cardboard, that is a template where I'm cutting something away. So going back to hundreds of triangles, I'll snub off the ends so that triangle will meet well with the piece it goes to, sometimes that is more square, sometimes more slanted. Snub it off so you don't get confused and get accurate results.

In addition to cardboard and plastic, we also have our rulers! I'm often marking lines on my rulers using the 1/4" quilters tape. It helps my vision issues if I don't have to count over to 2.75 or whatever -- I have a little piece of tape to guide me! Recently I had an odd measurement, something like 3.5 -- I used my tape and then I marked which direction the 6.5" ruler was supposed to go.

Peckish

I nicked my rotary cutters so much on templates that I switched to lightly tracing my desired shapes onto the back of the fabric with a pencil.

Railroadersbrat

My fiancé and I will cut down milk and water jugs for templates, it's something he picked up from his mother and grandmother when he was helping them quilt. I do go ahead and buy the acrylic templates when it's a pattern that I know I'm going to see a lot of, like the Double Wedding Ring and then some basic diamond and triangle shapes, but the milk jugs are perfect for us. I figure if we're paying almost $5 a gallon for milk, might as well squeeze that lemon until there's nothing left of it.

ctrysass2012

I have used cardboard for a template then took that to a hardware store or a glass shop. They have done the template out of scrap acrylic so cost was very low. This is from the glass shop.

aashley333

I have a studio full of stained glass. What a great idea to cut a template! I could grind it smooth and wrap in copper foil tape to use for quilt pattern.

As a retired teacher, I had tons of leftover supplies, including the clear thermal pages to make xerox overhead transparencies. They're slightly thick enough to make templates.