Holding giant templates in place–quions

I love my Nolting table – Black Bart. I really like using Circle Lord giant templates, but I really hate taking a lot of time placing them on my table. I tried rubbermaid shelf liner – and it worked fairly well, but I had to space the templates away from the Back channel, tape the ends, etc. I asked my engineer DH for some help. He tried to tell me about quions. I asked him to make some. We went down to the shop and cut some leftover nice plywood and made them. He did the cutting; I did the sanding.

The two triangles are the quions, the other piece is a spacer that keeps the templates a set distance from the edge of the back channel so I don’t have to measure each time. These are all quite thin, so they don’t catch on the machine carriage as it passes over.

The two left pictures show the template in place held by the quions – pronounced coins. I just use my fingers to push them together to hold tight. We squared-off some of the ends to give a “softer” place to push. This saves using a lot of painter’s tape that usually manages to work loose before the quilt is finished. I haven’t tried them yet on the  zig-zag, but they worked with the Baptist Fans, The Cosmos, and the Spirals. Thanks for the help, Don.

Happy Quilting,

Becky