Quilting is considered an American craft. Early Pioneer women made quilts from scraps of material left over from the clothing they made for their families. To make a design, a template was made and used to draw the design on the material. Then the individual pieces were cut with scissors. This was tedious and time-consuming work.

Today's quilters have many specialized laborsaving quilting tools to make the process of measuring, cutting, marking and stitching easier. Patchwork is about accuracy, careful marking and measuring, so it's worth investing in proper tools. When the end result is done properly, quilting is beautiful and fun.

Basic very beginning tools are a large size rotary cutter, 6" x 24" ruler, 18" x 24" cutting mat. These items can be found in local fabric stores, specialized quilt shops or on the internet.

As you start quilting, there are even more specialized equipment you can purchase.

*Rotary Cutter* - Is a round blade mounted on a handle. It should be with a retractable blade guard for safety because the blade is very sharp. The rotary cutter should be used only on a cutting mat and with rotary cutting ruler.

The rotary cutters come in several sizes. The best size for cutting 4 or more layers at once is with the 1