Thursday, February 28, 2013

New product for Ruffling!

Ruffles have long been one of my favorite embellishments on sewn items but oh such a pain-in-the-butt to make! 
Enter this new Clover product called Fuse 'n Gather:
 It is a one-sided fusible tape with basting stitches running through it to make your ruffling experience a hassle free one!
 You align it along the edge to be ruffled  * blue thread side up!* 
leaving a small tail at each end:
Iron carefully in place using medium heat and allow to cool
 Separate the threads  
 and knot the blue threads together on ONE end:
Then go to the other (unknotted) end and begin to gather your ruffle until you reach your desired length:
If your tape detaches anywhere just flatten it out and repress with the warm iron 
(thorough pressing and cooling time eliminate this problem!) 
Pin in place distributing the ruffle evenly and baste in place! 
Wah-lah! Easiest ruffle I have EVER made:
My apron turned out great and in less than 2 hours start to finish!  
 I give this product an A+ and I see more ruffles in my future!

Matryoshka doll fabric

Look what cute fabric we got from Riley Blake! 
And it even has a layer cake!
Love the diagonal stripe!

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Handy quilters!

Deb, Judy and Carolyn are all up in Salt Lake City attending the Handy Quilter Camp! Look at them blazing away! Way to go gals! Keep up the good work!








Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Honey, honey twister!

Look at this beautiful twister quilt pam made from the Honey, honey layer cake! Gorgeous!

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

New Quilters

These three ladies are in the Rail Fence class for New Quilters, taught by Margaret Persinger:
 Showing off some lovely colorful "rails"
 Stitching!
Pressing! 
Keep up the good work ladies! 
Here is Margaret herself working on her new sampler skillbuilder blocks!
Check out her mixture of prints and batiks:
Love it!



Saturday, February 9, 2013

Friday Free Sew Crew!

Standing room only this past Friday!
 Kathy working on Dessert Sky
 Alice measuring twice and cutting once!
 Conferencing amongst the quilters
 Marge's Dresden Star
 Mrs and Mr. Horton taking a moment to pose for us!
 More quilters!
 Mary with an almost finished!
 Log Cabin block done in Batiks by Terry! Very nice.
 Nancy working on Bali Wedding!
 Working away!
 Not 100% sure Nancy was sewing but she was having fun with friends!
Heads bent to the tasks at hand!


Thursday, February 7, 2013

Civil War Fabrics

Pheasant Hill Precuts from Moda 
 Bolts of from Moda, Marcus and RJR. 
Very rich colors in these reproductions!







 


Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Build Your Stash

Sharing this little story today because, when I shared it recently with a customer, Laura, she said it really helped her to be a better fabric buyer and made her stash more useful!
A few years ago I joined the Tri County Quilt Guild. They offered lots of workshops that I was excited to take but, with money tight and not wanting to go hog wild buying a lot of fabric for projects when I had a large stash already I made this rule for myself:

Rule #1. Fabric needed for Guild classes must come out of my stash! See Exhibit A:
No this isn't my entire stash but you get the idea!
Okay - so it took exactly one class to realize I had a BIG problem. I had NO LIGHTS FABRICS and the very first class I signed up for required a light, a medium and a dark fabric (as many patterns do)!

 Looks like it was time to break Rule #1 (already!?!?! oh no!) 
OR 
make a Rule #2! 
Few of us have any difficulty finding gorgeous medium and dark fabrics to catch our eyes. See Exhibit B:
BUT........ the lights are just not as flashy, 
and we tend not to buy them.  Thus I created:
Rule #2. When buying fabric,  I MUST buy at least one yard of a light for stash building.
I confess at first this seemed like homework,  however, when I actually started searching for lights with every shopping trip I started to appreciate lights more and developed a healthy supply of them which serves me very well. I bought light batiks, solids, Polka dots and more. Many from the clearance rack!
 I started to find some I liked! 
I found that I can now follow Rule #1! 
 I ALSO found that when I am in the mood to sew, I very often have EVERYTHING I need and can dive right into a new project when the mood hits!
See Exhibit C: I made this one night entirely from my stash just  because I felt like sewing!