How to Mark Lines for Quilting

I have recently tried out a new method for how to mark lines for quilting that seems to be working well for me.  It uses items you already have in your house, no special tools needed, so I thought it would be a good tutorial to share with you too!

Unlike most of the tutorials I share, this one is going to be lots of photos and few directions.  It’s really that self-explanatory and easy to implement!

Easy Hack to Mark Lines for Quilting

I have been using my quilting ruler and the back of a regular kitchen knife.

Really, just a plain ol’ dinner knife. 

I got the idea from watching another quilter marking her quilts with a hera marker but it wasn’t a convenient time to run to the store to pick one up so I improvised. 

It is darn hard to get a solid photo of the scoring marking left behind, but by using the back (dull) edge of the knife against the quilting ruler, just like drawing a line with a pen and ruler, leaves a faint line that can then be the guide for the quilting lines.

The Challenge of Quality Photos

This is the Jelly Roll Quilt that I made using my free pattern on National Sew a Jelly Roll Day back in September.

After deciding I wanted to quilt diagonal lines to make diamonds for this quilt, I marked and quilted approximately half of one direction before deciding that I should stop and take some photos to write it up as a tutorial.

The lines are faint, but if you look closely, you can see that the left 2/3 of the picture is quilted with straight lines that start in the upper left and work their way down to the lower right.

I marked 3-4 lines at a time, using both the previous lines and the quilt blocks as my guides. 

After marking 3 or 4 lines, I then quilted those lines, and then marked the next few.  I think that the lines would have stayed visible longer and that I could have marked all of the lines at once and then quilted all of them.  Working a few at a time felt better, and so I stayed inside my comfort zone.  You can do it however it works best for you!

Switching Directions to Mark Lines for Quilting

Once all of the upper left to lower right lines are quilted, it’s time to switch to marking and quilting upper right to lower left. 

Again, it’s tough to see the scored lines, but there are four lines scored there and they are most visible near the bottom of the photo.

Just like the previous instructions, mark a few, quilt a few until you’ve completed the full quilt.

Of all of the finished quilt photos I took, I think these are the ones that best shows the quilting.

This tutorial has focused entirely on one quilt that I took in-process photos of to show you how to mark lines for quilting, but I also used this same method on an earlier quilt.

This Christmas quilt was also quilted using a knife to mark the quilting lines, this time horizontal lines that follow the blocks.  I don’t remember exactly now but I think the lines are spaced either ¾” or 1” apart.

Both finished quilts are available in my Etsy shop, as is the Double Stars Quilt Pattern.  The Jelly Roll tutorial can be found in a previous post here on the blog.