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Is Your Sewing Kit Pretty Or Practical? Or Both?

Summary

We all need tools for quilting. This brief article covers some of the quilting tools you might want to have and why.

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Is Your Sewing Kit Pretty Or Practical? Or Both?

For me, part of the fun of quilting is that I enjoy collecting and using all the paraphernalia. Some tools are ingenious, some are just pretty, and some allow me to be a better quilter. In this article I share a few of my favorite tools.

For each of these 5 quilting tools, I add one or two of my favorite tips for using them.

Recommended Quilting Tools

 

1. FREEZER PAPER

Freezer paper is one quilting tool I could not live without!

Freezer paper has a plastic side and a paper side. The plastic-coated side will stick to fabric when pressed with a hot, dry iron and then peel off neatly to use over and over again. Ingenious!

Even before Inklingo, I used freezer paper for templates for piecing and for appliqué. I prefer it over any other template material.

Quilting Tools Freezer Paper

 

Fabric feeds smoothly through an Inkjet printer when it is stabilized with freezer paper, so freezer paper is perfect for Inklingo.

Printing Fabric With Inklingo

 

I can print precise shapes on fabric and the cutting lines, sewing lines, matching marks, and precision corners make me a better quilter than I could be without it!

Favorite tip:  Scraps of freezer paper can be overlapped and ironed together to create larger sheets. This is one of many great tips in The Inklingo Handbook (page H41 of the free Diamond-Triangle-Square shape collection).

Printing Fabric With Inklingo

 

2. ROTARY CUTTER

It won`t surprise you that I consider a rotary cutter an essential quilting tool. The Martelli cutter gives me perfect control for cutting curves. (No affiliation.)

The video shows how easy it is to cut curves with any rotary cutter.

Favorite tip:  The sharper the better! Normally we might hesitate to have very sharp objects lying around, but in this case a sharp blade is safer! Since you don`t have to press as hard with a sharp blade, it is easier to keep control.

Rotary Cutter

 

Safety is important. Inklingo is faster and safer than traditional rotary cutting because the blade is positioned first and we are not distracted by measuring at the same time. There are tips for safe cutting in The Inklingo Handbook too (page H29 of the free Diamond-Triangle-Square shape collection).

Being able to cut precise shapes printed with Inklingo makes me a better quilter.

 

3. SCISSORS

Of course, when there is a cutting line printed on the fabric, you can cut with scissors for a totally portable project, if you wish. Many quilters prefer to cut with scissors instead of a rotary cutter, and that's fine when you print the shapes on fabric with Inklingo.

Monkey says it is important to have a collection of great scissors. These are just a few of the scissors I have collected over the years.

Quilting Scissors

 

Favorite tip:  Color-coordinate your scissors with your sewing kit. It makes it prettier and more fun.

I have red scissors, pincushion and mouse to use when I fussy cut red fabric for Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses. There is another article on QuiltingHub showing how I print identical sheets of fabric with Inklingo for special effects.

Red Quilting Tools

 

4. INKJET PRINTER

Another essential quilting tool for me is an Inkjet printer for Inklingo, especially because I can use fabric efficiently when I print Custom Page Sizes.

Favorite tip: You can use the Inkjet printer and ink you already have. However, if you are looking for a new printer, there is up-to-date info about favorite printers on inklingo.com in the FAQ under the Support & Goodies tab.

Quilting Tools - Inkjet Printer

 

The Inklingo Quick Start Guide describes the 3 key concepts that make Inklingo such a good tool for quilters, and Custom Page Sizes is one of them.

Before Inklingo, I had no idea that the software for ordinary Inkjet printers was so perfect for quilters!

If you haven't tried Inklingo yet, please start with the free Diamond-Triangle-Square shape collection. It includes the first chapter of The Inklingo Handbook and hundreds of pages of versatile shapes to print on fabric.

Inklingo Printing Example

 

5. FINGER PINCUSHION

You have probably seen hand piecers wearing finger pincushions, but I consider one essential for machine piecing too.

You can see how I use a finger pincushion at the machine in this video about sewing hexagons by machine.

pincushion VIDEO

 

Favorite tip:  When I am hand piecing, I just have two needles in my finger pincushion, to be used interchangeably as pins and needles. It simplifies my sewing kit and makes it less likely that I will leave a dangerous pin behind by mistake.

Red Quilting Tools

 

This is another one of the many hand piecing tips in The Inklingo Handbook.

Monkey recently hosted a draw for some finger pincushions to quilters who left comments on the Inklingo Facebook Page. We will probably do it again, and you will know about it if you like Inklingo on Facebook and choose "Get Notifications" from the drop-down menu under Like.

video-finger-pincushion VIDEO

 

In the meantime, you might want to make a batch to give to your quilting friends. This 90 second video shows how simple it is to make a dozen!

Those are just a few of the ingenious and pretty tools I could not live without.

We are lucky to be quilters in the twenty-first century, aren't we? We have the best, prettiest and most ingenious tools and the best selection of fabric in the whole history of the world!

You can search for Franz or Inklingo to find more articles on QuiltingHub and there are more to come.

If you enjoyed this article, please log in and "like" it. Thank you for visiting Inklingo on QuiltingHub!

 

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Glossary

Appliqué
Attaching individual pieces of fabric to a background to form a design.

Same As: Applique
Cutter
A quilt that is so badly damaged or worn that it's only purpose now is to be cut up for other craft projects.
Fussy Cut
The cutting out of specific areas of a fabric to use the image or motif on the fabric. Often used to isolate animals, flowers, etc from a Conversation Print or Novelty Print fabric. A template may be used to cut out many images to be the same size for use in a block. Because the remaining fabric then looks like Swiss cheese, it is wasteful of fabric.
Hand Piecing
When you sew all of the patches in a quilt top together by hand, not using a sewing machine.

See Also: English Paper Piecing, Assembly Piecing, Machine Piecing, Chain Piecing, Paper Piecing, Piecing
Machine Piecing
Sewing patches in a quilt block together using a sewing machine instead of sewing them together by hand.

See Also: English Paper Piecing, Assembly Piecing, Chain Piecing, Paper Piecing, Hand Piecing, Piecing
Piecing
The process of assembling quilt blocks from pieces of fabric sewn along their edges to form a whole.

See Also: English Paper Piecing, Assembly Piecing, Machine Piecing, Chain Piecing, Paper Piecing, Hand Piecing
Press
Method of using an iron to press seams and blocks. This means simply pressing downwards on the seam with the iron from above and not moving the iron back and forth which can distort the block or seam.
Rotary Cutter
A very sharp tool that looks like a pizza wheel which is capable of cutting through multiple layers of fabric.
Template
Pattern pieces made out of paper, cardboard, plastic or metal, giving you something to draw around so that you can accurately replicate any shape.
Author
Linda Franz

Linda Franz is the inventor of the amazing brand of Inklingo. It has revolutionized piecing and accuracy for the entire industry. Check out her brand page by clicking Inklingo

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