Quilt in a Day Forums

What kinds of materials have you tried for making homemade templates? I'd like something thick enough that I won't cut slivers off the edges. The closest thing I've found is the semi-transparent blank stencil sheets at Walmart, but it is too flimsy.

I use the gridded plastic sheets... I got mine at Joann's... they are cheap but very thin.... I have had to re-make some when my rotary cutter slipped from my ruller while cutting fabric... but the grid lines are 1/4 inch and it helps especially if you have to add a seam allowance...
Chriss

My Mom has used the lids from a plastic butter bowl in the past.

If it is something that I will use often, I go to the glass shop and they will cut whatever I want in any size out of acrylic

Wow! I've never been on any interactive website before, so this is all new to me. Thanks to all of you for your suggestions. I like the plexiglass idea very much (I'm pretty brutal with my rotary cutter).

You can also use Masonite for rotary cutting templates. I like plexiglass because you can see through it. And Welcome to this fantastic group. Have a look around at the diff. sections of the forum and jump on in. Under Projects from the Heart section, most Friday & Saturday evenings we chat and call it a Sew-In tho' not a whole lot of sewing gets done. LOL It is fun! Hope to see more of you.

Hugs & Love
Cathy

My husband was putting in a new floor for me last week. I thought hmmmmmmmmmmmmm those tiles are kinda thick and you can cut them really easily. So I got my pattern and got some tiles and they are sticky on one side. So I made a template out of tile 2 tiles thick and it is working out really great. You can even get 4 pieces of tile for 1.00 at the dollar store. It is really working great for me cause you might only use the template for one quilt and you don't want to spend a lot of money on a template. Hope this helps.
Kathy

One of my quilting friends said that you can use X-ray film from old X-rays to make templates. I haven't had a chance to try it though. My son has some he's going to give me from when he hurt his knee but haven't had a chance to get them yet.

Lowes has the Plexiglass and will cut it to your sizes. Very cost effective.

To use a rotary cutter only pexie glass will work for me or I would be ruining my blade. For scissor cuttng I have used double sided tape and put two or three sheets of the template sheets together and cut the template pattern from that.