Free Motion Friday - Long Arm Quilting Rulers

HAPPY FRIDAY!

I am, right now, in Edmonton taking longarm classes from Claudia Pfeil. I know, life is tough.

A few weeks ago I mentioned in THIS POST that I had gotten some new rulers at QuiltCon. Which lead to a lot of questions about which rulers they were. Which I never answered. As well as some conversations about how while I could easily spend all my money on longarm rulers, many of my longarm friends do not feel the same.  So today I thought I'd share my rulers & some of my other favourite tools.

First up, the least tooly, but most useful -- I took some 3M sticky tabs and stuck this ziplock tub to my machine. That way, my garbage is alway right next to where I am stitching making it super easy to get my threads in there. My longarm is in my living room, and I am a super messy person, so I needed a way to keep threads under control. And this has worked really well.

Next up, marking tools -- I usually use purple air-erasable markers. And then the pink thing is a awesome pen from sew-line that you fill up with water, and it takes out the purple pen like nobody's business.

And one last non-ruler, this is technically a button spacer, but it's great for spacing quilting lines as well. So if you're trying to say, split something into thirds, rather than measure that out every time, you can use the button space to do this. It's a recently new purchase, so I haven't actually used it yet, though I know my mom uses hers a lot.

So, the rulers. This was my first ruler (or well, this is my second ruler, because I broke the first one. And this one too, but it's still usable). For the first...15 months that I used a long arm, this was my only ruler. I still love it, particularly the stitch-in-the-ditch side -- the little tabs on the end I can line up with my seam to get right in the ditch. It is probably my most used ruler. At least tied for first with...

This one. Which is one I got a QuiltCon. AND LOVE! All the lines on it means that I don't have to mark my quilt nearly as much to get a 1" line or a 2" line or whatever size I'm trying to get. I can get my dot-to-dot more even... In general, I think it's magic.

These rulers I used on both Audrey's quilt and Angie's quilt. Here is a photo on Audrey's.

I love the look of circles, but without a ruler my circles get really wonky. These rulers are great for getting perfect little circles. I find on circles this size it is way easier to follow the inside of a circle than the outside, so that is why these rulers have the circle cut out of them.

This one is a similar idea that I just got at the Central Alberta Quilt Show this weekend. I'm looking forward to using it though.

On larger circles, it's easy to follow the outside curve. They have nice markings so it is easy to find the center of them and get everything lined up nice.  I used these on Angie's quilt to get in the ditch of the curves, as well as to echo them.

The QCR sidekick is great for anything made with the quick curve ruler to get the same angle. I used it a lot on mom's Curve It Up quilt.

This is the Versa Tool. Which is another QuiltCon Ruler. It has a straight line, right angles, curves... it's great when I'm doing a bunch of different things and don't want to have to reach for 19 different rulers.

And more curves. These are designed for curved cross hatching, but are great whenever I need a curve, particularly a larger one than I have a full circle for. They also have handles on them -- my mom loves the handles, and has lots of rulers with handles, whereas I hate the handles, they make my hands hurt. So personal preference there.

That's it for me this week! Remember, if you want your quilt to be a part of Free Motion Friday, email a picture to kathleen(at)katheenquilts.com

Later days! Kathleen.