Thursday, July 28, 2011

What Are The ‘Must Have’ Quilting Tools? Part 2

By Jane Green


Welcome back to our must have quilting special. In previous articles, we covered the fundamental tools that without them, it might be quite hard to make a quilt.

In this article, we'll be taking a look at some items that aren't 'critical ' to the quilt making process, but without them, it would probably take much longer and be a lot harder.

Basting Gun

If you've never seen a basting or tacking gun, the simplest way to describe it is as a material stapler that uses clear plastic instead of steel staples.

These staples are built to dissolve in a warm wash. The idea here is that you staple your top cover, batting and bottom cover together with these and then run it through your sewing machine.

Once stitching is complete, you then put the quilt in the wash and the staples come out.

Pins - and a lot of them!

If you don't use a basting gun, you're going to require something to hold the quilt together while you stitch it. Here's where pins come in.

Pins have been utilized for many years as the default option when making a quilt. Many quilters still prefer to use pins over a basting gun as well , as its fast, simple and doesn't run any risk of damaging a quilt.

Calculator

I'm not good with math, thats why I will always keep one of those nearby. Even for easy sums, there are a couple of times I have double-checked on the calculator to be sure my mathematics was correct.

Its stopped me from a couple of erroneous head calculations and some massively mis-measured quilts.

Tape Measure

A tape measure is a great way to quickly and accurately make any measures for your quilt. It goes around corners and can wrap to almost any shape to offer you a precise measurement of anything one meter or under.

This comes in especially handy if you're measuring up fabrics for a patchwork quilt.

Its always a welcome addition in my quilting kit.

Well, that wraps up this guide on 'must have ' tools for quilting, hopefully you have some good concepts on what you could need or at least has confirmed that your kit is complete!




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