Sister's Choice Quilts

Favorite Notions Part Three

Welcome back to my sewing room, for a tour of some items that I love using.  The strange looking item in the photo above is not a sculpture.  It is a standing thread holder, given to me some years back by a friend.  It isn't possible to fit the larger more economical thread spools onto a standard sewing machine, and this upright thread holder makes it possible to use those larger spools.  It has two upright spokes for holding thread or spare bobbins, and a loop at the top that feeds the thread efficiently over to the sewing machine.  The little round decoration in the middle of the flower is a magnet Eva stuck on there.  I rather like it!

I love making little fabric baskets I can use in various ways in my sewing room.  The larger one is a thread catcher, and I keep it right next to my machine for corralling all those pesky threads and snippings that get all over the place.  I have several of the smaller ones, and use them for holding binding clips, Alphabitties, extra machine feet, etc.  

Where would I be without my Ott Light?  I got this one at Joann's when they were having a coupon sale.  It has a magnifier on top, which believe it or not I use frequently, particularly when I have to pick out little stitches when "un-sewing".  The light is good, and I switch it back and forth on the table, depending on which sewing machine I am using.  And look, there is another of my little fabric baskets just behind it.

I shared this with you all recently, and have to say that my new ironing station is one of the greatest additions to my sewing room ever!  Metal shelving from Lowe's cut down to size by my husband, with a heavy plywood board on top for my pressing.  I used two layers of batting and made a fabric cover for it.  It is sturdy and hard and very flat.  Greatest pressing ever.

Irons. Lots of irons.  I go through one a year for sure, and have given up on buying really expensive ones.  Whatever I pay, it only lasts a year.  This is my latest, my second TFal, and I really like the blasts of steam this one puts out.

I hope you can see this well enough from my photo.  It is a small table rescued from the basement that has my Steady Betty pressing board on top of it, plus a pressing mat and another iron.  This is my small ironing station that sits just to the right of my big Bernina 740.  It is so handy to be able to press small units without hopping up to the larger ironing station every couple of minutes. 

If you don't have a Steady Betty pressing board, you should look into getting one.  They are very portable and make pressing small units or appliqué pieces a breeze.  I covered mine with some extra fabric I had laying around, so it will look different from the ones on their website if you look there.  You can keep it on your sewing table or pick up a small table at a thrift store to set right next to where you sew.

Lastly, behind my ironing stations, you see two design walls I have for laying out quilt blocks.  These are so essential for accurate laying out of blocks and previewing your work as you sew.  No more laying blocks out on the bed in the guest room, or breaking my back trying to use the floor.  These design walls are made of foam board from Lowes, cut to size.  The larger one is 72" square, and the smaller one was actually made from leftover scraps.  You can easily cut foam board with a box cutter, and then cover it with felt, batting or flannel.  Mine are screwed into the walls. 

Hope you enjoyed my posts on my favorite sewing notions and accoutrements this week!  Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or if you would like to share some of your favorites.

Favorite Notions Part Two

I have so many favorite quilting tools and notions that I had to break my post up into chapters!  

In the photo above is my Fiskars rotating cutting mat.  I have a larger one as well, but this tiny eight inch one is just right for itty bitty block units.  On top of the little yellow cutting mat are my Alphabitties, which are so handy for labeling those teensy little block units as you sew them together.

These are my favorite triangle papers.  Star Singles by Spinning Star Designs.  I love using these when I have to make super small half square triangles.  The paper is easy to sew through and tears off with little effort.  These papers come in a wide range of sizes.

Some favorite rulers:  Starting with the largest one, the Bias Square ruler by Patchwork place.  It is eight and half inches square and I swear I use this thing all the time for squaring things up.  I don't think you can get it anymore, which is a shame.  Many other rulers do the same job, but the lines on this one are so easy for my eye to follow.

To the right is my Easy Angle ruler, which is terrific for making half square triangles.  You cut strips of fabric the final size of your hsts and layer two strips together and cut along the strip.  I have shown how to use this is many posts.

Just below the Easy Angle is one of my favorite Bloc Loc rulers, the 2 1/2" square.  I have the Bloc Loc half square triangle rulers in several sizes (1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 and 6.5), but this is the size I seem to use the most.  This is essential for squaring up oversized half square triangles to a perfect size.

Below that is a very heavily used Creative Grids ruler.  This one is 4.5 x 8.5.  I use this one a lot to trim down strips into smaller units.  Actually any size Creative Grids ruler is excellent, and I have many in different sizes that I use all the time.  The 8.5 x 24.5, the 6.5 x 12.5, and a variety of square ones, all get lots of use in my sewing room.

Last, are my Bloc Loc Flying Geese rulers.  I have these in several sizes as well, but fine these two are the ones I use most often.  1 x 2 and 1.5 x 3.

Check in tomorrow for some larger things in my sewing room that I highly recommend.

 

Favorite Notions

Instagram has been buzzing in the past week or so with quilters sharing pictures of their favorite notions.  I thought that would be a great topic for a blog post, but I have so many favorites, I think I have to divide them up into several posts!

Some of my absolute essentials are in the photo above. Starting at the top left, I have a funny wool ball pin cushion that holds my specialty pins:  

These numbered pins are so great for marking quilt rows as you sew them together.

I use these forked pins to keep my seam intersections exact and also to prevent seams from flopping over and getting sewn wrong.

I couldn't live without these binding clips.  They hold your binding in exactly the right fold while you are sewing it to your quilt.  No more wonky bindings.  Love these things.

Just below the box of binding clips is my needle threader.  Goodness, no binding would be sewn on without that little tool.  My old eyes need all the help they can get.

Just to the left of the binding clips is my Roxanne thimble.

These thimbles are extremely expensive ($65), but are custom sized for your finger and last a life time.  If you get yourself fitted for one of these thimbles you can pass it down in your will.  I have had mine for over 15 years and would be devastated if I lost it.  I have very small tapered fingers and regular thimbles literally fall off my fingers.  I have never found one to fit me until I discovered Roxanne.

Next is my handy lint roller.  I wear a lot of black, and let me tell you, it is not a great look to find yourself covered in little threads and pieces of lint.  I am in the habit of not leaving my sewing room until I give myself a once over with my lint roller.

Below the lint roller is my Zirkel magnetic pin dish.  Love the way the pins fan out in it.  In the dish are my Little House quilting pins.  Super fine and even if I accidentally sew over one, the needle seems to miss it.

Next, we have my favorite seam ripper, which is made by Bernina.  One came with my first Bernina sewing machine and I have purchased many more over the years.  They have a super sharp and tiny blade that picks out threads or rips entire seams with ease.

Then we have a pair of Tweezerman tweezers.  These are a must for picking out threads after you have done some "un-sewing".  I can't tell you how often I use these.  Ahem.

Next to the tweezers is my Clover chalk wheel marker.  I use this all the time to mark lines on my quilt tops when I am doing straight line machine quilting.

I keep a little pair of thread snipping scissors next to my sewing machine at all times.  These little pink ones are by Singer, but Olfa makes great ones, as do several other manufacturers.  These little scissors get a lot of use, and they do get dull over time and need to be sharpened or replaced.

Last up is my Olfa rotary cutter.  This pretty one was a gift from a friend years ago, and I enjoy it's orange floral design so much.  I am coveting the new pink ones that are coming out soon.  I prefer the 45 mm size.

Please share what your favorite notions are, and check back tomorrow for a few more of mine.

 

 

Tootsie Pops Progress

Some progress has been made on my spring table runner.  Aren't those blocks adorable?

I thought I'd talk about the pattern and the block construction in case some of you might want to make this pretty runner for yourselves.

The pattern, Tootsie Pops by Fig Tree, was designed to use those little 2 1/2" precut packs that Moda puts out.  It is a great use of those little guys, but when you use them to make half square triangles, you end up with an unconventional size, 2 1/8".  I had fat quarters, so I cut 2 1/2" strips and used my Easy Angle ruler to make the half square triangles.

I had forgotten how much I like this little tool.  You cut your strips the size you want your half square triangles, or slightly larger if you want to trim down to a smaller size for better accuracy.  Layer your two fabrics right sides together.  The ruler is angled as you see and you position on the strips as shown and use your rotary cutter to cut out the triangles.  You end up with two layered triangles all ready to sew on the machine.  Flip the ruler and make your next cut:

I chain pieced my scads of triangles and pressed them out.  I had stacks of 2 1/2" half square triangles.  The size I needed according to the pattern was 2 1/8" half square triangles.  On to the next step.

I used my  2 1/2" Block Loc ruler to trim the half square triangles down to size.  I don't mind the extra step at all.  I think the perfectly accurate results is well worth the time.

S'Mores Update

This week I have been focusing on my S'Mores quilt.  S'Mores is a design by Jo Morton, which I first saw on Instagram.  I am switching up my version however.  I am making 4 inch finished square in a square blocks, and will separate them with a tan lattice.  My blocks are all red and brown, with scrappy cream and tan accents.  I will do plain setting triangles from the tan lattice material.

In the photo above, I was experimenting with some lattice fabric, which I really liked, but don't think I have enough of.  Fatquartershop to the rescue, and I am waiting on something pretty darn similar to arrive in the mail.

My blocks are turning out so perfectly, which I credit to the Square in a Square ruler by Creative Grids.

You make your triangles slightly larger than you need and trim after each round.  The ruler has marked squares that you line up with the units in your block before trimming down.  Honestly, they are all coming out great.  I have made 81 blocks so far, and think I will need about twice that.  151 I think.   Since the blocks are 4" finished, but will be set on the diagonal with a 1 1/2" finished lattice, the math is too much for me.  I'd like to end up with a quilt around 76" square.  I will get it up on the larger design wall in a week or so and get it figured out.

I made 40 blocks on Wednesday, which wasn't too bad actually.  Do you notice the little binding clips I have holding some of the blocks together?  I have ten blocks in each clip.  It makes it easy to eyeball how many blocks I have in each color, without having to stop and count the darn things all the time.

 I got that tip from Jayne at Jayne's Quilting Room blog.  Jayne has many very cool projects.  If you don't follow her blog, you might want to stop by, say hi and have a look.  She recently made a blue and white quilt she is calling Snow Shoo, which is awesome.  Two simple alternating blocks (Snowball and Shoo Fly) and you end up with such a beautiful pattern.  I've added it to my TBM (to be made) list.

Did you all have a good Valentine's Day?  We celebrated by having our carpets and sofas cleaned.  lol  So romantic, right?

 

New Ironing Station

I have a new ironing station!  I shamelessly copied an Instagram photo Thelma (Cupcakes 'n' Daisies) shared last week.  I dragged my husband to Lowes and we easily found what we needed to create this ironing board and storage shelf.  The entire project took less than a couple of hours to complete, believe it or not.

We got a four tier chrome shelving unit.  They come five tiered, but due to my space constraints, I wanted the 14" shelf depth rather than the deeper shelves offered in the five tiered unit.  The cost for the shelving unit was about $50.  The unit is 37.5" wide, 14" deep and 53" tall when assembled.

 

Obviously you do not want to iron on a surface that is 53" high, unless you are a giant, so some customization of the legs has to be made to make the unit shorter.  My husband used a hacksaw to saw the metal legs down to a height of 37".  He said it was easy, and I took his word for it.

For the top, we needed a board.  We could have used particle board, thick plywood etc, but we found an already cut hardwood board at Lowes.  The one we chose cost around $15. There were various sizes to choose from and we selected one that measured 16" x 48".  It was 3/4" thick, which is important.  You don't want a flimsy board.  The fact that this board was the right size and already cut was a big plus.

While my husband assembled and customized the shelving unit, I covered the board with two layers of quilt batting and a length of fabric.  We used a heavy duty staple gun to turn the edges under and staple the batting and fabric all around the underside of the board.

The finished height of the ironing station is 38" once the board is resting on the top.  We did not secure the board to the shelving unit, as it seems to stay perfectly in place.  I think the two inches of batting and fabric on each underside keeps it from moving.  The board does not slide around, it sits nice and flat and is a wonderfully firm surface for pressing.  

To celebrate that, I picked up my new annual iron!  The T-Fal I got last year worked great for its year of service, so I replaced it with another one (slightly different model) at Walmart.  

I am super excited with this new ironing station, and kept going upstairs to look at it all evening.  I am thrilled not just with the improved ironing surface, but those three shelves are fabulous for storage.

 

Friday Finish--Raspberry Cocoa

Here is a fun Friday Finish.  This is a little mini quilt called Raspberry Cocoa, designed by Kim Diehl for one of her more recent Simple What Nots Club offerings.  I wasn't a member of the club in the past couple of years, but managed to buy the kit from someone on Etsy.  (It is amazing what you can find if you search!)  The colors are pretty much true in the photo--a bright raspberry pink and a warm cocoa brown.  I was taken by the fun variation on the classic Bear Paw block.

The "paw" is made up of a 3 1/2" half square triangle that you then sew a 1 1/2" square diagonally on the tip of the brown triangle.  I used my Folded Corner Clipper Ruler for that little step with good results.  If you haven't tried this tool for your diagonal corners, you might consider it.  There are tutorials on how to use it on YouTube, which demonstrate better than I can explain.  An Easy Angle ruler would work for this as well.

I found it a bit of a challenge to keep things straight with this quilt, but when I measure it, it is a perfect 27 1/2" square, just like the pattern says it should be.  

Hope you all have a lovely weekend, whether you are sewing, spending time with your loved ones, or just hanging out!

Is This How It Works?

I read a review of this Sewline fabric marking pencil recently, and the reviewer just loved it.  She went on and on about how easy it was to use and how when she has to draw diagonal lines on fabric there is nothing better etc etc.  It wasn't very expensive, so I added one to my Fatquartershop shopping cart the last time I placed an order and was excited to start using it.

I use various methods of making half square triangles, but sometimes if you just need a few, you end up drawing the diagonal line for stitching, right?   So, the pen arrived, and I took it out of the package.  It came with a little container of extra "leads" like you get with mechanical pencils.  The reviewer even mentioned that the pencil markings were very easy to remove with a damp cloth if it bothered you to have them on the wrong side of your fabric after stitching.

I scribbled a bit on a piece of white paper to "get it started".  Nothing.  It was as if I used invisible ink--or morel likely, as if the pencil didn't work.  Then I tried it on fabric.  It did not make any sort of visible line that I could see.  I was pretty sure I had gotten a defective one, because I tried it on every color fabric I could think of and it never made a mark.  Oh, there  may have been a little depression if I pressed really hard, but no mark like a pencil would make.

Finally I went to town with that pencil and scribbled like mad on the wrong side of a piece of fabric.  This is what I ended up with:

I mean, can you even see those lines?  And I was pressing as hard as I could.  Seriously?  Am I doing something wrong?  Is that how it is supposed to look?  If so, this is the dumbest product I have ever purchased.  Why not just use a plain old pencil, chalk, a Frixion pen,  or even a Bic pen to draw your line?  At least you could see the blasted mark.  And the idea of using a damp cloth to "easily remove the marks" from the fabric makes me laugh.  I needed all the overhead lights on, the window blinds pulled up and a magnifying glass to even see those marks.

I must be using it wrong.  Do you dip it in lemon juice or put it in the freezer to make the marks show?  Like invisible ink?  If any of you have used this pen, and particularly if you like it, please leave a comment and tell us all why.

Look Who's Home

Yes, my Diva Bernina 740 is back from her two month vacation in Illinois.  She was shipped back to the Bernina headquarters where the master technicians could work their magic and fix her up.  The last time I used her I was sewing through two layers of quilting cotton and using no pins and suddenly she went "Clunk" and the needle was hitting the hook apparatus.  Apparently this is a sign of a major "timing" mishap and can only be corrected by master technicians.  I was told that perhaps the entire lower electronics of the machine would have to be replaced. I would have to pay for her air fare to Illinois, but she should be covered under warranty for whatever repairs were needed.  My husband purchased her in October, but she did not get used until January when I could finally enroll in (an extremely inadequate) class at the dealer's.

So I bid her adieu in October, frankly not expecting to see her again for some time.  I received a phone call from the very nice tech guy at the dealer's just after New Year's, and he informed me that my machine was back from her two month stay at the Bernina Spa and was good to go.  Shipping was $136 and labor to fix her was $460.  What?  What labor?  The machine was under warranty, in its first year of usage.  I fussed and fumed and the result was that the dealer and technician told me that if Bernina would not honor the one year warranty and defer the labor charges, they would take care of it for me.  I thought that was pretty darn good service from the dealer to tell you the truth.  I didn't have to argue with Bernina USA about the labor charge at all, my dealer just dealt with it for me.

So I guess I forgive them for the terrible introductory class I took from them.  They came through in the end, when it really mattered.

So, what did the master technicians do?  They did not have to replace the electronics.  They checked and "re-timed" every single thing that is involved in "timing"--needle threader, thread cutter, needle position and things I don't even remember.  The tech at my dealer told me that these technicians at Bernina headquarters are really good at their jobs (and train the Bernina techs all across the US), and know their stuff.  They do not want to see a machine ever again once they get it up to speed, so they are determined to get it fixed and fix it properly.  So, that's good, if it's true.  Supposedly the technicians in Illinois went over every feature of the machine and made sure it was working as it should.

I've been using the machine, and it seems to be working beautifully, but to tell you the truth, I am a bit intimidated by it.  I was doing nothing unusual when it went out on me so dramatically, and I am fearful of something like it happening again.  And I will have to pay the shipping AND labor charges next time, as well as be without the machine for two months.  Honestly, I am so grateful my husband bought me the refurbished Bernina QE 440 to use as a back up machine.  I love that machine and know it will be good for many more years if this Diva 740 flakes out on me in the future.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

Barn Stars

I started a new project yesterday, called Barn Stars.  These little blocks are the cutest things ever.  They are only 4 1/2 inches!  It is a Simple What Nots kit I never got around to finishing, and now that I have time on my hands, I can finally get to it.

I am simply loving making these smaller projects.  I have to share something though.  Those darn Simple What Nots kits cost quite a bit of money (for my budget anyway), so I dropped out of the club after two years.  Seems to me the cost per kit was somewhere between $40-45.  It wasn't every month, they came out with six a year, but you could only get the kits if you were in the club.  Whenever I made up one of the kits, I always had a ton of fabric left over, which I didn't mind too much until I started thinking if they put less fabric in the kits they could lower the price and I could keep on buying them instead of dropping out.

So, for this kit, I cut out my fabric and this is how much I needed per block.  One 3 1/2" strip.  All the rest is leftover.  I could make four of these quilts!  Or add the leftover fabric to my ever expanding stash of Kim Diehl fabrics.  The cut they give you is something they call a "chubby sixteenth".  Is that some kind of minimum cut do you think?  

Still, I'd rather have less fabric and pay only $25 for the kit.  The kits, fabrics and patterns are adorable, and I surely would have stayed in the club if the price had been a bit more affordable. Anyone else belong to the Simple What Nots Club and have similar thoughts?  Or am I missing the point?  Just curious.

Speaking of spending $25, that is about what this minuscule rectangle of plastic cost me.  It seems pricey, but  it was worth every penny!  It is the 1 x 2 inch Bloc Loc flying geese trim tool.  I have used it so much since I got it.  The Moda Blockheads blocks call for flying geese that size, and I have used it in several of these small projects I have been favoring lately, including Barn Stars.  Perfect geese, and at that tiny size, you have to be precise.

Oh, and I got some good news today.  The bad news last week was that my husband got laid off.  The good news this week is that he found a new job already.  Whew.