When my hubby went away to Sydney for the football finals, I got quite a bit done in the sewing room and on UFO’s. He doesn’t mind me going off to the sewing room when he is around, but he tends to hi-jack me and drag me off to do other things!! Don’t get me wrong – I miss him when he is away and always look forward to his return.
At the recent quilt show I was demonstrating the olfa circle cutter. It is a great little tool and you always get an accurate circle. It took a little bit of mastering, but well worth it if you are going to be cutting a lot of circles for a project.
Me showing how it’s done!For instance, by just doing an edge stitching around your circle and cutting it into quarters or triangles you can do all the variations of Drunkard’s Path without doing curved seams. I know - cheating!!
“Playing with Circles” Quilt made by Fay Suley Fay – demonstrating Kaleidoscopes at show
There are so many modern and stunning quilts you can make with circles. The circle cutter demonstration was very popular and now I have a whole heap of random circles and some very holy fabric to play with!!
Shirley was showing her embroidery skills and it was creating a lot of interest. (That is her stunning underwater reef embroidery on the steps behind her).
I took my iron and portable ironing board along to the show and set it up. Unfortunately, one of the ladies accidentally ironed some fusible material and it got stuck all over the iron and made a terrible mess of both the iron and ironing board.
I have tried everything I know of to get the black spots and marks off the sole plate of the iron to no avail!
As for the ironing board, I whipped up a new cover using a tutorial from here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/iheartstitching
It was easy and I just used a bit of charity fabric this time, but next time I could really jazz it up with something funky.
Recently I purchased some polyester batting from a large craft supermarket. I chose a polyester ‘cheapy’ because the project I wanted it for was a quilt that was going to be washed a lot. If you see this one – my advice – don’t waste your money. I am going to chop it up and use it for stuffing. It stretches everything out of shape and you can’t get it to sit flat at all.
I have purposely blurred out the name but you get the idea?
I went back to the brand I love and I purchased the fusible one from a local distributor, Pauline Rogers from ‘Quilters World’. The fusible one was brilliant for the small project I was using it for and it remained well fused as I quilted it.
Pauline has all manner of items you may need for quilting and patchwork, and another tool I really love is the Charisma marking pencil. When you purchase it, she gives you both white and black leads, refills, and an instruction sheet which is important to read. I am rapt in mine and use it all the time now for marking.
Are you getting the message that I may be a bit of a quilting gadget geek???
Until next time………Dianne
5 comments:
The iron is a terrible mess hope you find a solution to clean it soon. You are a gadget geek, but very clever with them. Your circle cutter is amazing i could have done with that years ago. It was a great week at the show and you did a wonderful job demonstrating the cirle cutter. It was very popular with the visitors.
The new ironing board cover looks great, but the iron looks sad. I don't know of any magical cleaner that would remove the sticky bit off. You did a fantastic job demonstrating the tools - does that mean you will have a quilt made for next years exhibition?
Hello DI,
I reckon the circle cutter is pretty amazing.. and I am sure you did a excellent job of demo it.. I reckon it would be pretty difficult to sew all those circles together. It is always great to see Shirley showing how to do all her wonderful beautiful stitches.. Shirley you looked fantastic..
I have the solution to the sticky stuff on your iron.. I have been using it for years and years. It is called "Dritz Iron-Off Hot Iron Cleaner... It comes in a small tube.. You put a wee bit of the white cream on a wet cold wash cloth and rub it over the black spot while the iron is HOT... Make sure you have a big wash cloth wet soooooooooooooooooooo you do not burn your fingers.. It works wonder.. I am sure you can find it on the internet.. The new iron cover looks great...
Have a lovely week, DI Hugs Judy
I'm pleased to read your tips, for instance I was wondering if it was worth paying the extra for a better quality batting. I've been having a problem with my iron too and tried all sorts to clean it but I don't what was on it anyway. I had a stick cleaner for a previous iron which worked great but this one is supposed to just wipe clean with a cloth. I'd not thought of making a cover for my ironing board which maybe the solution to them not fitting properly.
Firstly, thanks Dianne for your comments on my stitching. I loved to read your post and see pictures. The round cutting tool is new to me, sounds so interesting. The iron, oh yes, it happens now and then. And you know DH is cleaning it with very, very fine steel wool. It is the only thing which helps.Although i am always afraid of destroying the fine bottom of the iron. But it is ok.
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