Helping Hands

As I mentioned in recent posts, my free-motion quilting skills are less than perfect in teeny tiny areas, so I'm trying to quilt most of the blocks and triangles in my Jane Stickle quilt using these two rulers. They make the quilting much easier to control.

The top ruler is a basic straight ruler -- I use it for stitching in the ditch and other straight lines as needed. The other one is called a VersaTool, which I use for short straight lines and for small curves. And it has the perfect name -- it really is quite versatile.

For those who are not familiar with using rulers in frame quilting, you can't use your regular garden-variety cutting rulers for this task. They're not thick enough. The rulers used in machine quilting are made of sturdy acrylic and are 1/4-inch thick.

I would be tearing my hair out right now if I had to quilt this monstrosity without these. More quilting pictures later this week.