An unusual quilting tool

I’ve had this tool for several years, so I’m not even sure that this same model is still available (newer ones are), but it certainly is useful! It’s called a Laser Level Square, and its intended use is for construction (squaring corners, etc.) or even for checking to make sure something is level (think tabletops or picture hanging). I found mine in a local home improvement store, but they’re also available from online sources. For my purposes, the “level” part isn’t really necessary, but the laser is!

What does something like this do for a quilter? It “shoots” two lovely red lines at right angles! This photo shows the lines in bright daylight and with an overhead light fixture turned on. You can clearly see the lines, though the photo does wash them out a bit.

In this photo, with the overhead light turned off but the bright daylight still coming through my window, the lines are much better for a blog post. 😉 I’ve set this onto a practice quilting sandwich to show you how it works. Pretend that this is a finished quilt sandwich, and you’re about to square it up for binding. See how easy it would be to get nice square corners and straight sides? And the lines work even for very large quilts; I can see them all the way across a pretty good-sized room.

Of course, I wouldn’t use those lines to do free-hand cutting! It would be too easy to slip. However, lining up a long ruler along the lines and drawing a cutting line or a seam line works really well. I prefer to do that, anyway, adding my piping and/or binding before cutting off the excess fabric, just for extra stability.