Quilting with rulers is an essential skill for quilters who want to showcase precise designs, shapes, and lines in their quilts. Rulers help your quilts look more polished, elevating the homemade into handmade territory. Rulers also make it easier to quilt accurate, complex designs and shapes; if you’ve struggled with free motion quilting before, you definitely want to start exploring ruler work and quilting with rulers!

One of the fears we’ve heard from quilters who haven’t tried ruler work is that ruler work will just make their quilting experience more difficult or more fiddly. But in almost every case, the second they try ruler work, they feel like they can’t go back. Ruler work opens up a whole world of possibilities for what you can do with your quilts. And Sew Steady is here to make that process as easy and smooth as possible.

Enter the Westalee Designs Beginner Essentials Kit!

As the name suggests, we created the Beginner Essentials Kit to help beginners get started quilting with rulers. It’s very cost efficient, containing hundreds of dollars worth of tools and classes for a fraction of the price. We start with the very basics of ruler work on a domestic machine, including how to set up your machine for ruler work and how to create basic quilted designs. The kit contains 11 tools and 8 online Sew Steady University courses—let’s break it down!

6-piece Sampler Template Set

The 6-piece Tempalte Set gives beginners to ruler work an excellent sampling of designs to get started with rulerwork. We’ve included the Westalee Design Clamshell Template CC2, Spin-E-Fex 4, 2″ Simple Circle, 6″ Spiral, Circles on Quilts Spinning Wheel #36, and 4″ Arc.

12″ Arc Template

We included the Westalee Designs 12″ Arc because it is a foundational ruler—there is just so much you can do with it! It’s also one of the first rulers we recommend for beginners because it’s easy to use and creates large, gorgeous curving designs across your quilt. We’re all about the minimal effort, maximum impact!

Domestic Ruler Foot

Remember the American Express ads that used to say, “Don’t leave home without it”? The Westalee Design Domestic Ruler Foot should say, “Don’t do ruler work without it!” Not only can you free motion quilt on any domestic machine with this domestic ruler foot, but it also works with a variety of templates and rulers (like the ones we’ve included in the kit!). It should be noted that the Domestic Ruler Foot is an optional add-on we’ve included to give quilters more options. With all of our ruler work templates, quilters would use a round ½” diameter foot, ideally one that’s a bit high-walled.

Stable Tape

Westalee Designs Stable Tape prevents rulers from slipping to ensure your ruler work is precise. The self-adhesive tape attaches to rulers and templates and has a grippy surface that grabs the fabric and holds everything steady.

 

Spacing Gauge

You’ll reach for the Spacing Gauge more than you realize, and once you start using it, you’ll wonder what you ever did without it! You can measure 1/8″, 1/4″, 1/2″, and 1″ spaces when using rulers and templates, so it’s handy to have when you’re doing ruler work.

 

8-pt 6 1/2″ Crosshair Ruler

The Westalee Design 8 point 6 1/2″ Crosshair Ruler is an essential tool when quilting ruler work. The reference lines make it really easy to achieve accurate spacing when using rotating templates, and the 8 point is useful for marking 4 (90°) or 8 (45°) or 16 (22.5°) or 32(11.25°) reference lines.

Essentials Beginner 7 Course University Bundle

Now you have the tools to get started with ruler work, the next step is access to expert guidance! We’re curated a selection of 7 excellent courses in our Quilting Essentials Beginner Bundle to hold your hand as you work to become an adept ruler work quilter. You’ll learn from leading quilt educators like Leonie West, Helen Sullivan, Nanne Panne, Donelle McAdams, and Sharon Wyatt, demystifying techniques like parabolic curves, quilting with arcs, quilting with templates, and more.

Quilt As You Go University Course

If you have to start somewhere on your ruler work quilting journey, start with the Quilt As Your Go University Course. The QAYG University Course equips quilters with the knowledge to use templates and rulers with confidence. The course teaches a variety of ways to use the templates in your kit to create feature quilting, quilting sashing, and borders, and it also includes instructions for making 25 different quilt blocks using templates.

 

So, are you ready to learn how to quilt with rulers? The Beginner Essentials Kit has everything you need to get started! It’s a great gift for your favorite quilter and an excellent way to elevate your quilting. We hope you’ll join us in our Westalee By Me Facebook group and on our Facebook and Instagram to share your progress and engage with our community of ruler work quilters! Don’t forget to check our YouTube channel for even more educational content!