This week I continued with the Angela Walters “Quilting with Rulers” challenge, working with wavy rulers this time!!
The first one that I played with was her “Elvira” ruler…..
For some reason, I expected that if I sewed from one end to the other (hook to hook) that the line would be a continuous wave…..I WAS WRONG.
I put it on my whiteboard and did some playing and discovered that sewing from one end to the other created a point in the wave (the left line below)……
Instead, to create a continuous curve, I nad to stop at the lowest point of the curve and move the ruler to the next lowest point. It makes the effective use of the ruler less, but I needed to stop and reposition my hands anyway so it didn’t make a lot of difference.
I used this ruler to first make parallel wavy lines and then quilted some opposite wavy lines…..
It actually reminded me a lot of the first two designs that I teach in my “MOVE IT” free-motion quilting class.
Check out the bottom of this post for more about that!!
Honestly, I think that it was easier to free-hand these designs rather than use a ruler to quilt them!! I might use my ruler to get the initial line in place but then would probably free-hand from there.
Angela encourages you to try all of your rulers so I decided to use one that I purchased several years ago…..’
I tried to use it on a design where the waves move a small amount in one direction with each pass. I didn’t get it working PERFECTLY by any means, but it is something that I think I could master with a bit of thought and practice…..
I used the Chevy ruler…..
…to work a small area…..
I like it, but obviously, need to learn how to space them better.
I grabbed another ruler and quilted this triangle…..
Finally, I chose to use a “Sew Steady” ruler….
….to quilt one of the 1-inch borders…..
It looked a little bland when I finished, so I added another design and it ended up like this…..
Much better!!!
The thing that I am learning about rulers is that you have to plan a bit more than you do when you are doing free-hand filler designs, but I can still see the many times that they will be useful!!
I’m still working on the challenge so there will be MUCH more to come!!!
Now…back to MOVE IT!!
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