Quilted Paradise Newsletter

Here is an excellent Newslwtter full of information for seriouquilters:

http://www.quiltedparadise.com

I'm including a quotation from Quilted Paradise Newsletter to show you the kinds of articles available there:

Plastic Quilting Stencils and Templates -

There are many products available for marking your quilting design on a quilt. One of the most common is the quilting stencil. Quilting stencils are usually made of lightweight plastic and have slots cut through in the pattern design. They are inexpensive and readily available at quilt stores, chain stores, and online.

Please look at your quilting stencil. You will see long cuts through the plastic with short 'bridges'. These bridges are necessary to keep the stencil intact. But as you are quilting you would continue to quilt the marked lines through the unmarked 'bridge' area to the other marked line.

Some quilting designs made into stencils are continuous and some are not. When machine quilting you might want to start with a continuous line quilting design to avoid many starts and stops and stitching back over a line that has already been quilted.

I find quilting stencils very easy to work with. You simply choose the size you want leaving at least 1/4" - 1/2" along the edge of the patch. Then mark using a washout marker, pencil or chalk.

There are several ways you might make your own quilting stencils. Use ordinary template plastic available at quilt stores and a double bladed craft knife, a wood burning tool with a stencil cutting point, or cut the stencil with a fine point scissors.

Quilting templates are also made from template plastic but are usually a shape that is actually cut out of the plastic and you trace around with a washout marker, pencil or chalk. They are much simpler to make but would not be as detailed a design as a stencil.

Both quilting stencils and hand made templates are very economical as they can be reused many times. If you get a small tear in the plastic it can be mended with tape.