The Templates!

Well, today is the day to make templates!  Actually...you have nearly a week to work on the templates...

The templates I have in my tutorials are a jpg file.  I did the first tutorial several years ago and that was the best way I had to post templates.  It helps to print at 100% and I uncheck the box 'fit to frame'.  Still I have found I need to fiddle with it a bit to increase the size to a 12 inch block. 

Hopefully, now, I have successfully saved these templates in Google Docs and you will be able to access them.

So here are the TEMPLATES 

If anyone has another method of sharing templates and would like to share that with everyone...I would love to hear.  I do not have a photoshop program and I don't know if that would help with this issue, but I would be more than willing to invest in the program if I thought it would help.  So let me know....

Once you have copied the templates...and you can adjust them to any size on your printer.  Increase or decrease the % they are copied. I know this can be a bit of trial and error, but the templates should work together at any size.  With my 12 inch template the center square is 1 inch (finished) or 1 1/2 inches with seam allowances.

If you plan on making your own templates, I have a couple of options to make them a little more substantial than paper templates.  Although, paper works too!

Here are some supplies you may want to gather...

 

 I have some plastic template sheets...for making templates from quilter's plastic.

There is a cardboard box {no I wasn't hungry}....this is to make templates from cardboard.

Scissors for paper and an X-acto knife

A glue stick

the pins are just to look pretty!!!

        To make templates out of plastic, I first copied the template {remember to have your printer or computer set to copy at 100% not fit to page} then cut the template out along the dashed line...leaving your 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Use double sticky tape to secure the paper on the plastic and trace around with a sharp pencil.

  

  Carefully, cut with the x-acto knife...you may need to go over it a couple of times.  And make sure you work on a mat.

For any templates, purchased or homemade, you can easily add hole-punched sandpaper circles to the underneath side to keep them from slipping.

The other option and the one I use most often is cardboard.  I take my paper template and a glue stick.  Cover the wrong side of the template with glue and stick it to a piece of cardboard.

 

Then I carefully cut out along the edge of the paper with my knife.  Again, you may have to do this a few times to go all the way through the cardboard.  

  

I use my Electric Quilt program quite often and if I am not paper foundation piecing...I usually make cardboard templates...very old school!

You can see my templates are a bit chewed from using the rotary to cut and not being terribly careful...

 

Also, remember I did have a list of vendors for the acrylic templates.  I did order a set and they are very nice, although, I found that the center square is just a wee bit smaller than I would like, but it is easy enough to cut a square without the template.

You can see here...the templates I have always used, the center square is the same size as the straight edge on templates A and B.

 

I hope these templates work out for you...the link at Google Docs or the old jpg image I have on the right hand side of my blog under TUTORIALS.

Let me know if you need any help...and Happy Father's Day to all those celebrating!  Hope you are having a great cook out!

mary

ps....on friday we will talk about fabrics and Susan will help me out! Yay!