So I was talking to a friend of mine about her new acquisition. She's a quilter, among other things, and she really enjoys it. Quilting is a big source of stress relief, and goodness knows she needs it. With a full-time job and three dogs and three kids to keep track of and ... well, you get the idea.

Anyway, her new "toy" is a "Little Gracie" quilting frame (www.graceframe.com). The photos are her actual frame with her sewing machine installed. She uses her quilting frame to make short work of the otherwise long quilting process.

This thing basically lets her use her sewing machine as if it were a pen. She just traces out whatever patterns she wants to quilt. The quilting frame takes all three pieces of a quilt (top, middle batting, and bottom), and puts each of them on a separate roller. Then it feeds them into the sewing machine for stitching. It's a lot like how a laminator works, except it's quilting thread holding it all together!

She does a lot of her work freehand, but you can also get templates for the machine that let you trace very precise patterns with a stylus. This way you get a beautiful pattern on your quilt, front and back.

I wondered aloud how she managed to keep the stitches uniform. What I mean is this: Whether you're using the stylus and tracing a pattern or just "drawing" out your stitches freehand, it seemed like you'd have to be awfully careful to always go the same speed. Otherwise some of your stitches would be longer than others.

She just smiled and showed me the really cool part. She has this add-on accessory for her sewing machine called a ”cruise control”. She got hers from quilterscruisecontrol.com. The quilter's cruise control watches out how fast you're feeding the quilt and automatically adjusts the sewing machine's speed to match. If you're rounding a wide corner and going fast, the quilter's cruise control speeds up the sewing machine. If you're working a tight, intricate part of the design, it slows down the needle to match your slower speed. Basically, the result is whether you're going fast or slow the stitches always end up being the same length.

In the end I was a little jealous. I kind of want one for myself, but I'm not sure where I'd put it. Plus I don't really know that much about quilting. Maybe someday I'll get a computerized version of it. Now that's something I could get into!