Shoppers Rule Blog

 One of the reasons that we held our Blog contest this summer was to encourage feedback from our customers. We always want to hear your needs, wants, and opinions on things that can help make Shoppers Rule better.

One such request was for more information for beginning quilters. As a novice quilter myself, I understand how easily you can be overwhelmed with the plethora of so-called essential quilting tools on the market today.

I found a great top-ten list at about.com that contains truly essential quilting tools. The following is an abbreviated version of the article by quilter and author, Janet Wickell. And I’ve added brand name examples of the types of products that are on her list.

Rotary Cutter – Rotary cutting lets you quick-piece your quilts, or at least cut the patchwork shapes you need very quickly.

• Shoppers Rule has Olfa, Omnigrid, Clover and Fiskars rotary cutters in a variety of sizes and styles, so you can choose the one that suits you.

Rotary Mat & Rotary Ruler – For home sewing, buy a 24” x 36” mat if possible. A 6” x 24” ruler is essential. A 6 ½” or a 12 ½” square ruler make it easy to cut shapes and check blocks.

• Olfa, Clover, Fiskars, Gingher, and June Tailor all offer various sizes of rotary mat, including the 24” x 36” version.
• Olfa, Omnigrid, Gingher, and Quilt in a Day all offer a 6” x 24” ruler.
• Olfa, Omnigrid, O’Lipfa, Gingher, Quilt in a Day, and Quilter’s Rule all offer square rulers.

 Sewing Machine – Unless you plan to hand sew, you need a sewing machine. It doesn’t have to be an expensive machine that sews tons of unusual stitches – most of your sewing will be a plain old straight stitch. Do look for a machine that helps you easily sew a ¼” seam allowance, the quilting standard. Many machines have a special presser foot for that. A sewing machine that accepts a walking foot–for straight machine quilting–is a big plus.

Cotton Quilting Fabrics - Save the velvets, satins and other fancy fabrics for later, after you’re accustomed to working with quilting cottons. Don’t skimp on fabrics, because quality, tightly woven cottons will extend the life of your quilts.

Iron and Ironing Board - Any iron and ironing board you already have will work just fine. If you don’t own an iron, find one that’s fairly heavy, because it’s the combination of weight and heat that presses your quilting components.

• The Rowenta line offers a variety of suitable irons.
• For ironing boards, try Polder or “the Big Board”

Fabric Scissors & Paper Scissors - You’ll need scissors for some quilting tasks. They don’t have to be expensive scissors, but one pair should be reserved for fabric and the other for cutting paper, plastic and other crafting materials you might use at some point.

• Clover, Fiskars, Gingher, Havel’s, Heritage Cutlery, and Mundial all offer a wide variety of scissors. Try an 8” dressmaker shear as your fabric scissor (like the Gingher G-8) and a 5” craft scissor (like the Gingher G-5C)

 Cotton Thread - Put away the polyester and cotton-wrapped polyester threads you use to make clothing, because they’re too abrasive for a cotton quilt. You don’t have to buy lots of different colors of thread — either medium gray or tan usually blend with most fabrics. The same cotton thread used for piecing works well for machine quilting. If you plan to hand quilt, buy cotton quilting thread, but don’t use hand quilting thread in your sewing machine.

• Shoppers Rule has Aurifil, Robison Anton, Sulky, Superior Perfect Quilter Thread and King Tut cotton threads.

Design Wall - Design wall is an expensive sounding name that describes a very simple tool–a place to tack your quilt blocks and other components up so that you can step back and look at them singly or together. One or two large pieces of white flannel work just fine. So does thin quilt batting. Blocks and other pieces stick nicely to both materials.

Seam Ripper - We all have to rip out seams once in awhile. Find a seam ripper with a very fine head. I like the Clover seam ripper, but there are many other excellent alternatives.

• Shoppers Rule has numerous seam rippers, including Clover, Havels, Gingher and more.

Pins and Needles - You’ll need long straight pins to hold components together. Choose very thin needles with large heads. You might also want to pick up betweens for hand quilting and regular sewing needles for your machine. Needles with a large eye are helpful for machine quilting.

• Clover and Collins both offer great quilting pins

   

• For the needles, Shoppers Rule has Colonial, Dritz, John James, and Piecemaker, to name a few.

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