1. Deep Wave ruler from Off the Edge Quilting my hubby gave me for my birthday! Look how nice and even these waves are in the border!
2. 1 1/2 inch by 2 inch wave ruler by the Westalee system with Quilter's Rule. This is the perfect ruler for smaller waves.
3. I always seem to use my circle templates!
4. Using my laser pointer to trace little cute elements and place them with perfect positioning on the quilt top. Here I traced over lines from a free coloring book page from the Internet (and modify it for correct thread paths) using the laser pointer and quilted it to the top. Genius! I admit it wasn't my idea...it was from my quilt club at Floyd & Lizzie's quilt shop c/o B. Bell.
5. When they don't make the shape of template you want and you really really want that cute figure in a specific spot and don't trust your tracing abilities...spend an extra 10 to 20 cents on...yeah...a child's wood cut out from your local craft store! No, serious--another genius idea shared at my quilt club and Floyd and Lizzie's also c/o B. Bell. Now, you have to be careful when using wooden templates. Quilting machine manufacturers recommend a thickness of at least 1/4 inch of templates for safety reasons--I've found templates can slip a little. So...I have woodworking connections and get these cut out of a thicker wood. The only draw-back is that they are not see-through (like the "professional" snowflake in the photo next to the wood templates).
6. My favorite customer's quilt in April: the stork by J. McArthur. She chose long-arm feathers driven off the curved seam lines to wrap around the storks. It has Minkee backing which helped the quilt puff up and 80/20 quilter's batting by Fairfield. I want to share this photo (with her permission) because it turned out beautifully. The variegated thread makes the whole quilt sparkle.
7. Minkee fabric for the backing. At first, I really dreaded using Minkee, it seemed like no matter what I would encounter thread breaks and tension headaches. Well, after playing around and adjusting my settings (and writing them down) I no longer have troubles with it. Look how beautifully the stitch detail shows up on this backing--and it is so soft an warm!
