Quilt As You Go, Simply Done

Simply Done

Accessories

Rotary Cutters – Holding and Safety

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I have been meaning to make this video for a long time. What prompted me to finally finish it was seeing two instances, in the past week, where quilters were holding their rotary cutters in a way that actually makes it harder to cut, and watching one quilter cut toward herself – which made my heart skip a beat!

It’s not a gorgeous video, but it does address how to hold a “stick” cutter and some safety issues. One more tip: use caution where you place your other hand while cutting – never place it in front of the blade to hold a ruler. My friend Joan tells me that she uses a meat cutter’s glove on her left hand (I’ve seen them also with fishing gear, called a “Fillet Glove”) and that’s probably a good idea also.

My Design Wall

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***UPDATE*** I have been getting a LOT of requests for specific information on the design wall fabric that I buy. Here’s the label from the bolt of my most recent purchase:

Rainbow Classicfelt by the KUNIN Group

Just a Few Projects

I started digging through some unfinished projects recently and put some on my design wall, then I thought I’d make a video about the design wall and share it 🙂

5 Minute 5 Dollar Organizer

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My pal Judy Wedemeyer gets credit for this one and she’s going to post about it on her blog too 🙂

5 Minute 5 Dollar Craft Organizer

We were chatting about making quilted Art Cards and she wanted to show me some of the decorative bits she’d collected that she used to both make the cards and to give her inspiration. Colored feathers, beads, buttons, strings and more filled her little organizer bag. When I asked her about her bag, she flipped through it and told me how she’d made it from a tapestry book cover and some zippered food storage bags. I was in awe!

No amount of arm twisting could get her on camera but she did give me permission to share it all with you and so I’ll post the steps here, along with a video. I must say, I’ve made three of these so far, all as gifts, and I just LOVE them!

I started by scouring second hand shops for the tapestry book covers but could not find one in months of searching. I did, however, find a multitude of zippered bags, and a gift bag, and I’ve transformed several of them. I learned that it helps to have one of the plastic baggies with me while shopping, to check sizes of the zippered bags against the size of the plastic baggies. While it’s easy to shorten the depth of the plastic baggies, trimming the “zipper top” down was not something I wanted to do.

Use a bobbin thread that matches the exterior fabric

I look for the full zipper closure on the bags and the ones with two zipper heads are quite nice; I love a few extra interior pockets but they aren’t necessary, and I search both the “purses & bags” section and the luggage section of shops looking for likely candidates for this project.

What’s absolutely necessary, for the way we make them, is some type of fabric spine (like a book spine) for sewing the baggies to.

Offset the zipper pulls when sewing them in

Judy explained how she grouped the baggies for sewing (we both use 12 baggies per organizer) and offset the zipper tabs of the baggies, to reduce the bulk.

Stapling the bottoms keeps the baggies from slipping while sewing













For most of the organizers I’ve made so far, I grouped the baggies by three, and stapled the bottoms of the bags together to keep them from slipping while I am sewing them. I backstitch at the beginning and end of each row of sewing the baggies in and I used a cotton wrapped polyester thread for strength, with a slightly longer stitch length than normal.

Supplies




Supplies I’ve been using so far:
Zippered bag from second hand shops, laundered
Zipper pull plastic food storage bags
Strong thread
Stapler
Scissors to trim the excess off the bottoms of the baggies, if needed
Sewing Machine 🙂

Here’s the video – if it “hiccups” please press the Pause button and let the video fully buffer (watch the red line get longer, which indicates that the video is loading and buffering) and then press play.

Here’s another one that I made for my granddaughter:

Big Ruler is On Sale

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Hi Quilters, if you have put off buying the big 20 1/2″ ruler but you are sure you are going to make another Crazy Shortcut Quilt, now’s the time to go get it. I paid almost $50 for mine, but they are on sale [online at JoAnn’s] for $19.99. I am thinking about buying two more! I just love these rulers and use them on all of my quilts, not just our crazy shortcut ones.

Happy quilting! Marguerita

My New Pressing Board

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I created a huge pressing surface for myself, something I’ve wanted for many years! I used 1/2″ OSB (Oriented Strandboard), two layers of Warm & Natural Batting, some muslin and my favorite staple gun. To keep it from moving, I set a large piece of gripper pad (sold as shelf liner in department stores) underneath! Here’s the vid: