Quilts and Other Stuff from Frances

Giving wavy rulers a try

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!!

To sign up, just CLICK HERE>> Remember….it’s FREE!!

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