Grid Marking

Last week’s Gnome Home blog post was total silliness and fluff. This week’s has information that I hope you will find helpful in your quilting!

I recently surprised myself when I realized I’d never posted about a very helpful tool called the Grid Marker™.

Years ago I did freelance work for June Tailor™: demonstrating for them at trade shows, testing their products, designing patterns and stitching samples. It was a delightful learning experience to work on that side of the industry. During my time with them I came up with the idea for the Grid Marker. I am a huge fan of their Shape Cut™ ruler, and felt there was a need for the same type of tool to mark accurate parallel lines. The slots in the ruler are wide enough to accommodate a pencil or marker – and it’s really easy to use!

To make vertical lines, set the bottom horizontal line of the Grid Marker™ along the bottom of the area to be quilted. Choose your favorite marking tool and draw in the slots at your desired increment:

I hope you can see that horizontal lines would need the bottom line of the ruler set along the side of the block. Doing both results in cross-hatching.

To do diagonal lines, choose 45º or 60º, and place that line (I used 60º) along the bottom of the quilt block. Once again, draw in the slots at your desired increment:

To do “hanging diamonds” (diagonal cross-hatching), place the other 60º line along the bottom of the block and draw the opposite angled lines:

This tool makes quick work out of drawing parallel lines, and it keeps them parallel!

When the Grid Marker™ was introduced, it was chosen as one of Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine’s top 3 tools of the year! June Tailor™ continues to sell the Grid Marker™, but the newer version isn’t quite as long as my ancient and well used one.

You can find them on the June Tailor™ website, at JoAnn’s, and hopefully at your local quilt shop.