Laser Square Up Review

I have often struggled with squaring up my quilted projects. I start in one corner, using a large square ruler, line up my 24″ ruler and work my way around the quilt.

Unfortunately, many times I get back to the final corner and things don’t quite match up. And, when I say don’t “QUITE” match, I really mean that they are nowhere close!!!

Several years ago I was encouraged to try using a Laser Square.

My initial thought was “but I’ve never seen those in a quilting supply store”. I was quickly encouraged to forget the quilt store and instead head to the hardware store!!

There I found this Bosch Laser Square….

….also known as “Red 30-ft Self-Leveling Indoor Line Generator Laser Level with Line Beam”

Since using this tool, I have been able to easily and accurately square up any quilt!!

Let me show you how it works.

I place the tool on top of the quilt, in this case, squaring to a line in the quilt rather than to the edge…..

If you look carefully, you can see the red laser line running down the edge of the quilt….

Now I can place my ruler on the line……

….and carefully cut off the leftovers…..

I repeated this process on each edge and ended up with a perfect square at the end…..

I am fortunate to have a large cutting table so I can lay out much of the quilt at one time.

BUT, what if your quilt is WAY too big for your cutting surface?

You can easily lay the quilt out on another large surface (or even the floor) and use a marker to DRAW in your cutting lines first.

This is also a good way to test the lines BEFORE you cut!!! I used this method a BUNCH of times before I got comfortable using the laser square.

There is something about this line just instills confidence…..

I hope that this tool will instill the same confidence in you!!!

Just PIN IT!!!

Two years ago I added on to my studio and completely reorganized it, upgrading several aspects of the room.

One of those was to build a larger design wall and then figure out which pins were best to use.

I started out with my normal quilt pins…..round head and flower head……

They were long and thin and didn’t work well at all!!

Next, I bought these “Magic Pins”……

….thinking that the “handle” would be easy to use.

Unfortunately, they were very thin and bent with just the slightest resistance.

Okay….thin pins don’t work, how about short, thicker ones??

I tried these……

…and found that they worked quite well.

The only problem that I had was when I was trying to hold a bunch of layers of fabric on the wall. Then, they would either bend or come loose and the fabrics would topple to the floor.

Last month, I attended a training session for our guild and the instructor mentioned that she used Corsage pins on her design wall……

The heads are large, making them easy to grip.

The pins are long, meaning that they can EASILY hold a bunch of fabric layers

IF they bend, they can easily be straightened out again!!

And they are amazing for holding quilts in place…..

I now believe that I have answered the question of which pins to use on a design wall.

As I said in the title of this post……

JUST……PIN…..IT!!!!

But sweetie….he followed me home!!

Wednesday started out like a normal day. My plans were set for working in the morning and spending the afternoon in my studio. Then, we went to the gym….and you know that NOTHING good ever comes from that!!

While plodding along on the treadmill, I started listening to a quilting podcast and towards the end they started talking about Quilting Machines….long-arm, sit-down, mid-arm etc……

DANGER…..SLIPPERY SLOPE

Back at the house, I couldn’t get the conversation out of my head and kept thinking about the Color Wheel quilt that is 82 inches square and wondering how I would ever quilt it on my Juki. Also, I realized that I actually have room for something like this in my new studio!!

Finally, I picked up the phone and called my local(ish) Juki dealer and started asking questions about the 2200QVP Sit-Down machine. I found out that this machine is being phased out and replaced by the identical machine, except with a stitch regulator (and a lot more $$$$$). Since I really wasn’t interested in the Stitch Regulator, I decided to make a trip to the store and give it a try.

I went prepared with rulers, quilting gloves, practice pieces and a basted charity quilt. I was immediately pleased with the stitch quality……

….but continued to sit and play!!

After about 2 hours, I was hooked and decided that this machine HAD to come home with me.

After huffing it up the stairs, Michael paused to take a photo of me and Julio……

On Thursday I found a couple of hours to keep working on the charity quilt and am again pleased with the results…..

There will definitely be things to learn and it will take a bit of time to get used to, but I am thrilled with my new purchase!!!!

Another tool in my Quilter’s Toolbox

As I said in my last post, this month was the second installment of the “Morewood Mystery” presented by Meadow Mist Designs, and this month centered around making Half-Square Triangles in two different sizes.

Cheryl, the moderator of the mystery gave some amazing suggestions for how to easily trim these HST’s using a Rotating Cutting Mat and the Bloc-Loc ruler. Check out my video to see these latest tools that I have added to my Quilter’s Toolbox…..

Basting Sunday

On Sunday afternoon, I decided that I wanted to accomplish one item on my To-do list…..get two quilts basted and ready for quilting.

The first one was another Charity quilt that I will use to practice Free motion quilting with a ruler. For this one, I was using batting that had been given to me so I used a spray baste. I previously talked about spray basting in this post, but I did noted one change that I would make the next time.

So, this time I used a sharpie and marked the outline of the quilt top on the batting so that I would know exactly where the spray needed to go……

With the first one accomplished, it was time to move on to my Brown Stripe quilt and was using Fusible batting for this one. My favorite batting is Hobbes Heirloom 80/20 Fusible……

I used to lay out all three layers of the quilt and iron them all at once, but I was never completely happy with how the backing looked. Several years ago I changed the process, starting out by slightly stretching the batting and taping it to the floor.

Then I spread the backing out over the batting and smooth it in place…..

Now I take the iron and slowly iron from the center of the quilt out to each edge, vertical first, then horizontal and finally diagonally…..

I normally accomplish this by kneeling on the quilt and ironing heavily…..

When it is ironed in place, I remove the masking tape and turn the quilt over so that the batting is facing up…..

One nice thing about this method is that you can easily see the back of the quilt and can ensure that the top is straight.

Now I place the top on the batting, smooth it out and start the ironing process again.

But, this time my knees (particularly the replacement) were NOT happy kneeling so I decided to keep standing and just bend from the waist to do the ironing……

This is where the “WOW” moment happened…… As I ironed, I realized that I had previously been pressing down HARD with the iron which meant that sometimes the seams were distorted. Ironing while standing meant that I was pressing lightly with the iron but letting the steam do all of the work!! The result was a better basted piece with very little distortion…..AND no sore knees!!!

Once the top was ironed, I trimmed the excess batting and backing fabric but got a LITTLE too close here…..

I let it sit until it had dried completely and then moved it to the guest bedroom to wait until I can start the quilting process…..

It fits really well in this room!!!!

I have not made all of the decisions about how to quilt this, but I am pretty sure that I am going to do the “square spiral” design in all of the white blocks. I will do one, see how it looks and then keep going with others…..or pick out the quilting and find another idea!!!