"Swingman" wrote in message

BTW, what do you get for a quilter whose investment in equipment is
greater
than your husband's shop tools?


Being married to a quilter and knowing a number of quilters, I would make
the following suggestions.

1) Attachments for the sewing machine. I bought my wife a "walking foot" for
her Bernina. It was a big hit. There are many such feet for this machine.

2) All quality sewing machines require an annual cleaning and adjustment. I
got a gift card for the amount of such a tuneup for Dawn's birthday. She
loved it.

3) One universal complaint among quilters is the small size and low height
of cutting tables. An enormous amount of time is spent cutting fabric with
rotary knives on self healing cutting mats in modern quilting. And this is
often done on small, rickety tables. Or the dining room table.

I have made some cutting tables that were just a 4 X 4 piece of plywood for
the top. Put something underneath, but it really doesn't matter as long as
the thing is solid and has a cutting mat on top the covers the entire
surface.

I even made one once for one of Dawn's friends that was just nailed together
2 X 4's with a plywood top. It was far better than what she was using and
she loved it. She painted it some fancy colors.

4) Good lighting. Since quilters all have color fetishes, They need to be
able see the true colors when they are putting the quilt together. A lot of
adjustments take place during the assembly of the individual blocks and the
overall quilt. The lighting is needed for both sewing and the cutting
table.

The gold standard for quilters is the OTT lights. All serious quilters
either have these lights or are going to buy one soon. My wife swears by
her OTT light.

5) Support for the quilt during the actual quilting process.

Quilting consists of two primary tasks. The first is the construction of the
individual blocks, then the entire front of the quilt.

The second is the actual quilting it self. This is the sewing together the
front, back and the batting between. It also involves sewing on borders.

The second part can get very cumbersome. Think of trying to cut a sheet of
plywood on a tiny benchtop table saw. Support is need both to the side and
the other side of the sewing machine when this quilting process is done. I
have seen a foldup table in back of the sewing table for this purpose.

Since space is usually at a premium, this support has to be able to be
pulled out and used, then be put away.

6) Of course you can by special quilting frames to mount a sewing machine to
that puts the quilt on a roller. This is kind of expensive and takes up a
far amount of room. Some quilters now just make the parts of the quilt and
take them to someone who has a quilting machine.

My wife is talking about getting a Juki machine just for this purpose. This
would be to spare her more expensive machine from the stresses of the
quilting process.

7) All quilters use those rotary knives. There are some nice, new ergonomic
designs for these knives. And they do need their blades. These are great
stocking stuffers for a quilter.

8) If you can find a quilting calender, these are most appreciated. A
quilting store would be your best bet for locating these.

9) And the old standby, a gift certificate for a quilting or fabric store.

That should get you going.