There are many hacks floating about regarding using ruler guides for improving accuracy/speed of cutting. Let's face it, cutting fabric for a large project is critical. Read your ruler wrong by a 1/4 or 1/2 inch narrow, and your swath of fabric that you just cut cannot be used unless downstream you have a call for a smaller cut. There are two types of guides:
- Visual Guide: A visual guide is just that: a visual guide to knowing what your cutting measure is. You can use tape or my favorite dry erase markers.
- Physical Guide: A physical guide provides both a visual and a physical ledge that you can bump against your fabric on the underside of your ruler. Many people make sewing ledges from painter's tape. Marci Baker has vinyl Qtools. They work well, except that they fall off, and are too easy to lose.
I'm an incorrigible experimenter, and I set out to find a better alternative. I've never used the painter's tape after trying it once...I don't like to recreate stuff each time I need to do something. Here are some of my experiments:
- Plastic sheeting: Plastic from plastic placemats or cutting "boards" is heavy duty and easy to cut. I have 1/2" double sided tape, and cut my plastic at 1/2" wide...to any length that makes sense for you.. I affixed double sided tape to one side--the side that I would stick to the underside of the ruler.. I found that it provided both a visual and physical ledge. I could easily remove an reposition the strip, and it was thin enough that I could leave it be for other cuts.❤ And cheap, cheap, cheap.
- Silicon Tape: I thought this would work well--and it does until you have to reposition it. It is too squishy. FAIL.💣 But this has other uses.
- Foam Tape. 3m Double Side Foam tape has a protective cover on one side and is sticky on the other. To make it more "removable," I adhered a piece of the plastic sheeting to the bottom. I put double sided tape on the that to adhere to the ruler. I left the protective covering on the other side. For all of the benefits of the double sided tape on the plastic sheeting, combined with the benefits of the foam tape height, this provided a fabulous visual/physical guide that was easily repositionable.❤❤❤❤❤❤
Double sided tape will attract dirt from being removed--and as it is tacky it will attract fabric particles of the smallest sizes.. Simply pull it off the plastic and affix a new piece.
Here's an inexpensive hack for a thread cutter:
Now the mounting tapes do a phenomenal job of affixing (and removing) "stuff". I attached one of these to my acrylic sewing table AND to the tray on my Bernina. Cheap and effective for thread cutting your chain pieces AFFORDABLY.
0 comments:
Post a Comment