I had a little time and found myself on rabbit trails through the internet. Â I found myself on Lori Holt’s Bee in my Bonnet blog after a blog reader suggested I check out some of her farm quilts.
I’m not the best at sampler type quilts but I’m hopeful that I might make one or two quilt by her that aren’t quite so sampler-ish. Â I did cave and buy the book but more on that another day.
For now I thought I would tell you about her seam guide….I found out about this from Lori’s blog Bee In My Bonnet. Â You can find the link to the actually page that tells more information about the seam guide here. Â I was already buying the book so I decided to buy one of these too. Â I’ll admit to being pretty skeptical….
So it looks like this…..
Here’s a close up so that if you’re ever interested in getting one, you know exactly what it is….
I followed the directions and got the seam guide in place on my machine. Â I grabbed some of my triangles and check out to see how it could work….Wow, I liked it. Â This is going to be FABULOUS for when I am sewing flip corners and need to go from corner to corner of a square. Â Right now I just eye ball it. Â I know some people draw a line on the squares but with this there would never be a need. Â This is really going to keep my accurate. Â All I need to do is keep my edge on the 1/4″ line.
It took about a minute to install….five might be more accurate. Â I read the directions twice and fretted once…but it’s not a big deal. Â After I got it in place I did worry though. Â How hard would it be to get to my bobbin to change it? Â So even though I didn’t need to change my bobbin, I tried it anyway. Â Here’s what I found….My machine is different than most. Â I don’t have a drop in bobbin…I don’t have a front load bobbin. Â I have a side load bobbin. Â The opening you see to left is actually an opening on the deck of the table that attaches to my machine. Â The opening on the right, under the seam guide is actually the opening to my machine.
To get to the bobbin I had to lift the seam guide and stick my hand under…check out my glamorous arm picture below!
It was do-able and the guide, with the help of the sticky dots that I only placed on the right side of the seam guide held the seam guide in place. Â There was no need to reposition it.
I have been using this for a couple weeks now and really like it. Â I showed it to Kelli and she plans to get one too. Â I can easily see that is will help my accuracy and for anyone who was previously drawing lines when doing flip corners would save lots of time. Â It’s a win-win all around.
I know someone will ask where I got it so I’m adding the information here… Â Lori has an Etsy shop. Â Here is the link.
I’ve said before that I’m not a big gadget girl…but on this…I’m sold.
Hoping your tests turn out as hoped on Friday. I was wondering if the tutorial for your pattern Hip to be square is the same as the printable pattern. If not is there a way to access the archived content as I don’t wish to mess up what I am hoping will be a beautiful quilt using your pattern and some mountain colored batik fabric. Thank you for providing the printable pattern to a novice quilter.
Here is the link for my “Hip to be Square” pattern. http://www.joscountryjunction.com/friday-finish-hip-to-be-square/ It is a printable pattern. I’m don’t know that there is a “tutorial”.
More accurate triangle? I AM SOLD! I think I will be asking for one of these for Mother’s Day.
I love my seam guide, it’s called clearly perfect angles, it’s a very thin, very flexible plastic. It’s also clingy so I can just roll up the front part when I need to change a bobbin and the back stays in place. It has helped me so much with an accurate seam and no marking!
Lori Holt also has an alphabet book. I have wanted to make an alphabet quilt for a long time. I am a brick and mortar buyer so I am waiting to buy that Lori Holt book until I can in person.
I like the “gadget” you bought it looks like it can make sewing those corner to corner pieces very accurate.
I have the Clearly Perfect Angles (by New Leaf Stitches) and have given several as gifts. We all rate them highly.
The seam guide looks a good idea. However, can you think of a reason why it needs to be so big? Does it do other things as well?
I watched Eleanor Burns last night demonstrate one of these from a previously taped episode earlier this week from RFD channel. She showed both methods of penciling a line diagonally on the fabric and this method.
I have a Janome and the bobbin case is directly aligned with the needle, top loading bobbin. I’d have to remove this each time the bobbin needed to be loaded.
On Eleanor’s she had the machine inset into a table so the angle device was ‘taped’ to the table which allowed for easier removal and she used her stiletto to ‘drive’ the pointed fabric end to the needle.
What a great wake up to see you have one too and that you like it.
These are a wonderful tool, but only if you have an extended table on your sewing machine. Sure wish someone had told me that before I bought a similar one. I don’t have an extended table and it doesn’t work at all.