Let's Do Some Ruler Work #3

How quickly does time go...must apologise as I forgot to post last Tuesday. No idea how this happened. We have arrived at Ruler Linky Party #3. Please consider participating to get this linky party off the ground and I will ensure that I keep to my fortnights. Also notified my followers re the wrong date 😲...apologies for that also! The next Ruler Linky Party is now on the 17 March!

Must say my timing for the linky might not have been the best as I am actually without my Sweet 16 at the moment, so I had to familiarise myself again with my DSM which in itself has been interesting. I started ruler quilting in all seriousness on the Sweet 16, so going back onto the DSM has been a challenge. Having said that though, it is all do-able and works just as fine. I dare say it takes a bit longer as you have to spend a lot of time checking the alignment because of the limited visibility...definitely have been spoiled with the Sweet16! While I have got some quilts ready to be quilted, I decided to wait for the new machine to arrive, so for the moment I am just playing around with rulers on the DSM (and doing an extraordinary amount of piecing).

I had a gift voucher recently for the Fatquartershop and discovered that they carry some longarm rulers, so I carefully went through and decided to get one of the earlier HQ rulers that I had been eyeing out here in Australia, the Multi Clamshell Ruler

 I spend a long time thinking about what rulers to get as there is just such an overwhelming variety on the market and they are in general so seductive. As I have participated in a number of Ruler of the Month Clubs (run by Handiquilter...No 6 is coming up soon!), I have got quite a collection, so any addition has to be carefully weighed up. This is a ruler that I specifically bought for allover patterns and sashings and borders. I was a bit surprised at its size...it just about covers my whole hand and on the DSM that added an additional challenge for some reason (I think it distracted me when trying to align it properly), however after a few designs I got used to that.
Here is what I trialed

The ruler has 1 1/2, 2, 3 and 4in clamshells. For those of you who have the Versa tool, it is important to note that the Versa tool has the 4in clamshell shape, however lacks the centering line going vertically down the ruler. Easy fix, I did draw that on the ruler when I was doing an overall clamshell design with the Versa tool. So, if you only ever want to use that size the Versa tool is just fine. However I wanted the smaller sizes for sashings and borders to give me some options. Again, you could use half circles to do just the same, if you got them, however I like the ruler stopping me just at the place where I am supposed to be. As you can see above the smaller sizes make quick and easy sashing designs, most notably the orange peel design and the interlocking clamshell design. I did come up with that funny leaf design on top of the clamshell...actually really liked that but not sure where and when I would use that, however it would fill up a border very nicely and is fun to do. My grid design above is something I want to do on a bigger scale over one of the quilt tops...here I just did it with the 1 1/2in clamshell to get the placement right. Love the look of that.

Also, on a side note, my DSM (Pfaff) initially kept shredding the thread...I put a titanium topstitch needle in and the problem disappeared. I had forgotten about this little hint. For some reason it works better with those needles and the shredding stopped.

Let's have a look at what you have been working on...

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Karin