mtkoldra

As I am doing FMQ on my latest quilt a thought came to me that doing some ruler work would be nice and help me with quilting a wide borders. Any thoughts/suggestions where to start? I know that rules can be quite expensive.
thank you

Bobbielinks

I have been quilting on a longarm for 17 years and love doing ruler work. I did need to have an extended base on my machine so the rulers would not wobble and tilt. To begin I purchased a straight ruler about 10 inches long and 2 inches wide. Wonderful for SID, crosshatching and piano key borders. I also purchased a set of circle rulers that I use for feather veins, orange peel, continue curve and a great number of block designs. The circle set is odd numbers 1", 3", 5", 7", 9" and 11" bought from an individual many years ago. I do prefer the solid rulers and not the ones that are nested. I would recommend the straight edge and circle rulers to begin, get comfortable with them and add others later. I have added ovals that are nested and hard to use (taping them together helps a little). Have also added hearts, but find they seldom fit where I want to put them so end up cutting a heart from freezer paper, pressing it to the top and stitching around it. After all these years, I rely mostly on the straight edge and circle ones.

Tartan

Are you using a longarm or sewing machine? You need a rulers foot and the thicker rulers for both of these. Angela Walters does both quilting on sewing machine and longarm so check out her videos.

platyhiker

I know that standard advice is that you need a ruler foot and thicker rulers, but while doing some practice FMQ work (on my domestic sewing machine), I recently experimented with using my cutting ruler with my floating (Not hopping!) quilting foot, and it seemed to work well for me. The important thing seems to be that my foot is low enough that the ruler does not seem to be able to get under the foot. (I've heard more than one long arm quilter say that if the ruler *does* get under the foot (and the needle then hits it), the noise is *very* scary and startling!)

If you want to see how to convert a hopping foot into a floating foot, Leah Day has instructions here.

Three Dog Night

Check out www.kellyclinequilting.com, I took a class from her last year and she has YouTube videos using her rulers. They are reasonably priced and simple to use. I have also taken classes using Westalee rulers which can give beautiful designs but are more expensive. I don't think using a regular ruler is a good idea as could break your needle or do damage to your machine. Leah Day has a DVD on her website by Amy Johnson about quilting with rulers and it uses a quilting ruler foot.

jmoore

Rulers are fun but like any other FMQing, they require some practice. I have Westalee rulers for my DSM (I think they were about $100 with the ruler foot) and I’m sure there are tons of YouTube videos.