I am in love with free-motion quilting. To me, it’s the best part of making a quilt! I find myself hurrying through the piecing process just so I can get to the quilting. So of course I love tools that make the job even easier. I first heard about the Supreme Slider when I attended a lecture on free-motion quilting from Joanie Zeier Poole nearly 2 years ago. Leah Day from The Free Motion Quilting Project highly recommends them, too!

It took me about a year to finally buy my first Supreme Slider, but I have been using it ever since for all of my free-motion quilting. It’s a piece of slick teflon plastic that rests on the bed of my sewing machine. Because it is so slick, the quilt glides over the surface of my sewing table and there is less resistance and drag on the quilt. That means less tension issues for both me and the sewing machine!

I started with the regular size slider which measures 8″ x 11.5″.

This size has worked well and was a good size to start with to see if I liked it.

Once I became hooked, I upgraded to the larger 11.5″ x 17″ Queen size. This covers more surface area and is perfect for use on my drop-in table. You can see a comparison of the two sizes shown with my sewing machine below.

I only use the Supreme Slider when I am doing free-motion quilting. It covers the feed-dogs so I can either drop them or leave them up, depending on the type of thread I’m using and how my machine is sewing on any particular day. However, I remove it when stitching in the ditch since the feed dogs are engaged and I don’t need to slide the quilt around as much.

When the bottom (pink side) of the Supreme Slider gets dusty (usually while waiting for me to use it again), I just rinse it off underneath the sink and pat it down dry. Then it adheres again easily to the bed of my machine.

Here’s one word of caution – be sure the slider is completely “stuck” down before you begin FMQ so it doesn’t move around while quilting. I accidentally stitched through my smaller version right after I got it. It still works but it now has a permanent “scar!”