Ruler Work

One of the challenges I faced in quilting the Bucky quilt was in the outer border.  I wanted to make parallel lines, in pairs.  I have seen this in other quilts and I liked it a lot.  Nothing like a simple, masculine-looking touch to finish off the quilting.  Only it turned out to not be so simple.  I tried to free-motion quilt the parallel lines. Problems:  1)  They have to be PARALLEL to each other and all the rest of the lines.  2)  They have to be PERPENDICULAR to the edge and the border.  3)  They have to be STRAIGHT!  4)  They have to be the same width apart.

This was harder to achieve than I thought.  I consider myself to be a fairly good free-motion quilter.  I have done a lot of it.  But I found this very hard to do.  Lines were slanty, lines were crooked or wobbly.  Same width wasn't too tricky, I can measure.  I ripped out, a lot!  I remember something called "ruler work", whereby you free motion quilt using a ruler next to your pressure foot.  There are special, extra-thick rulers for this, and also a special thick pressure foot.  Neither of which I have in my possession.  Hmmm.  Still, I tried it with a regular ruler, and my free-motion foot, and, after a few bobbles, I had fairly good success.  Not perfect, but WAY BETTER than what I had done previously.  One helpful thing was my stripe was just 1 inch wide, so I lined it up between two one-inch marks on the ruler, and presto!  Instant Perpendicular.  Also, I learned to wait until my needle was in the red stripe to change hand positions.  There always seems to be this little "jog" in my lines when I change hand positions, so using red thread and stopping the needle in the red stripe, the jog (if there is one) isn't so noticeable.  I also added sandpaper gripping dots to the bottom of the ruler so it didn't slip on the fabric.  It really helped move the fabric and ruler at the same time.  Consistent pressure on the ruler was also very important.  There was a definite learning curve to this process, and as I went around the quilt adding sets of parallel lines, I got better and better.  I know I will be using this process in the future.  I might even invest in an extra thick ruler and pressure foot!!