Shadywood Quilts

Old Time Measure Graph

Do you remember going with your mom or grandmother to the fabric store to buy fabric? For me, it was torture, standing around, looking at pattern books, and ultimately buying some fabric.

So, your mom (or grandma) finally chose the fabric. Then, they took it over to that huge table, and ran that fabric through a weird machine.

This one looks like the one that I remember seeing. I never understood how they worked.. Wwaaayyy before computers, and this was really HIGH technology...

It not only measured the fabric, it cut a little notch at the precise measurement! Then they used those scissors in the groove in the table and cut the fabric. Wow! (or rather Yay, we were finally going home- LOL).

So, when hubby and I started doing t-shirt quilts back in 2006, he was in charge of all the fabric cutting and prep. This engineer guy had a degree in Industrial Technology. That means he was always trying to find faster and more efficient ways to do things. After he found out that buying one of these little puppies was in the several thousand dollar range, he decided to build his own version.

Fabric Measuring Wheel Pattern

OK, This is not as cool looking as the old timey measuregraph, but at $10,000 vs. less than $100, I gotta go with the clunky looking one!

We have made a couple of these. The measuring part is something we found on Amazon (measures in Feet), a couple of pieces of wood, hardware and there you go.

We drilled two holes in the corner of the cutting table to keep it stabilized. A mark on the cutting mat gives you the place to cut.

 

The Shadywood Fabric Measurer pattern is designed to measure fabric off of a bolt (or large amount of folded fabric). When we were making t-shirt quilts, we had consistant sizes that we used for different sized quilts. We had a quick 'cheat sheet' on the top of the measurer as a reminder of sizes.

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