How to Make a Quilting Stencil

Since my quilting style is interpretive, I thought I would share how I make my stencils. I generally start with a paint stencil or quilt stencil that I've downloaded. I print it onto plain paper and trace it onto a write-on transparency sheet with an erasable projection marker. Then, I pin the sheet to the quilt to see how the design fits and make adjustments with the stencil. When I have it roughly the way I want it, I scan the sheet with white paper on top into my computer. I open the design in Paint Shop Pro and perfect it using 1/4" guides and vector shapes. A 5 pixel width line is the same as a fine point marker. I print this design onto an inkjet transparency sheet and cut outside the lines with an craft knife. Now, I have a reusable clear stencil for marking my quilts.

Sometimes, I use packaged paint stencils that I purchased. The daisy paint stencil was the basis for this quilt design.

I traced the areas I liked onto Write-On Transparency film with an erasable Overhead Projector marker.

Then, I cleaned up the image in Paint Shop Pro.

I printed the design onto Inkjet Transparency film.

I placed the printed design over the quilt block to check placement.

I cut out the stencil with a craft knife.

I traced the stencil onto the quilt block. The circles weerent centered so I centered them on the block after I cut out the design.

 

This is what it looked like when it was stitched.

To make a continuous line stencil, I cut out the positive image and traced around it. It's tempting to punch holes through the lines, but that didn't work as well as I had hoped for lines that were close together. This one is cut out of poster board.

 

For this one, I traced lines with a fine point sharpie and cut out all but the sharp points and curves.

Separating the elements made it easy to mark this block.