Get a grip

Sometimes, it's not easy holding on to a quilt while you are machine quilting. The loss of hand strength can be very gradual, but nevertheless, it happens.

Recently I've discovered 2 items that assist with the grip dilemma. The Nitrile gloves put out by Mr. Clean are very thin, but flexible. When they fit your hand snugly, you get much better control and I tend to use these when working on smaller quilts. The Stanley brand gloves I found in the hardware section of a local store. These fit fairly tightly but are still a bit more bulky than I'd like. Still, when working on larger quilts they do a good job of handling the big rolls.

The brand I prefer, but have not been able to find locally, are those used by car mechanics. They are made of the same blue Nitrile as the first, but are a bit thicker. The plus side of the Nitrile is that they are fairly inexpensive and you can clip off the fingertips on those fingers that need to be available for threading needles, etc.

If you are having any trouble at all manipulating the rolled layers in and around your sewing machine, give one of these a try. Who knows, you may have all of your tops finished by the end of the year.