Ode to Spring

For many months my snowman wall hanging has been adorning the kitchen wall but it was time to tempt spring into the great white north! I made this little quilt this week while dreaming of warmer weather!

This is what I am hoping will go away...

 the snow piled up at the front of the house (we don't use that door!).

I tried a new batting in it too. It is Quilter's Dream Blend and it's a 70% cotton, 30% poly batting. It washed up nice and squishy just like a cotton batting does and it machine quilted nice. It seems to be heavier than Hobbs but lighter than Warm and Natural. I like it!

I usually do dark borders but with this little quilt I did it a bit different than the usual. At first I wasn't sure about the light borders but they have grown on me and now I really like them!

My next project is a quilt using the triangle exchange squares. Here they all are with the papers off!

I hope to get the rest of the pieces cut out this week and maybe get it started by the weekend.

Happy Stitching!

Christmas is Coming!

With Christmas coming quickly, I have been making a few small things....some I can show, some I can't! Here is my latest little project. They turned out so cute! All you need is a charm pack and you get 3 of them!

Two charm packs later...

When I was finished sewing I started cleaning my sewing room and found this Cutting Mat Cleaner I had never tried. So I took it out and cleaned my cutting mat. The cutting mat even looks clean!

This is the close up- I would never have believed my mat could be that dirty! Very gruesome! This is one product I will be using more often!

Now back to my sewing room...I have a Christmas Stocking to make!

Happy Stitching!

My new most favourite notion!

This week I pulled out from my drawer, a box of pins that I have had at least 2 years and more than likely longer than that. I have never tried them in all this time...so what have I finally tested and now can't live without?

Clover Fork Pins!

I've been working away at my Churn Dash quilt and decided to try using them where you butt your seams up together. I have to thank Annie Smith. She showed off these pins when she was on "The Quilt Show- Episode 209" and I realized that I had those pins.

They were amazing! Every single seam match is perfect - nothing slipped. I do have to admit to a couple of mishaps though...

I must confess that I am a pin bulldozer. I just sew right over them with wonderful abandon and it is not too often I bend a pin or break a needle, until these fork pins...2 pins bent and 1 needle broken in 3 seams. Not a good record. So I changed my ways and as I reach a pin, I slow my machine right down and I am ready to stop it and grab the wheel if necessary. After that I have a perfect record!

So now I wonder how many other notions do I own that are amazing and I don't know it yet?

Happy Pinning!

EQ Newsprint and...Bamboo Batting

A few weeks ago I won a package of the new EQ Newsprint from their blog! Thanks EQ! The packaging says it's for paper piecing and machine quilting. I thought I would test it out and show you my results!

The first thing I need to say is that I LOVE the packaging! It comes in a resealable bag. What a great idea!

I printed off some paper foundations and a couple of quilting designs right from EQ. The paper fed smoothly through my good printer and the persnickety printer as well. A good start!

Then I did the paper piecing. I tried 2 different stitch lengths- 1.5 and 2 on my machine. Both were excellent and tore very smoothly when I was done. This EQ newsprint worked much better than the paper I have been using ( I don't remember that brand now). I even had to tear out a seam and redo it. It held up well!

Next up on the test was to try machine quilting. I just pinned down the paper and followed the lines - well mostly followed the lines!

Then I just tore off the paper. I am really pleased with how smoothly this paper tears. There was minimal pulling of my stitches and hardly any shredding of the paper.

So the big question is would I keep this paper well stocked in my sewing room? A BIG yes! And now that I have tried it for machine quilting I can see me using a lot more of it!

So now that I have given a great review how about a bad one?

Do you remember that Redwork Santa? Well I started to hand quilt it using a new batting.

It is a cotton and bamboo mix and it feels so very soft to touch it. It is also thin enough to hand quilt BUT it is horrible to hand quilt. My quilting needle actually gets grabbed by that dastardly batting. I have never had that happen. At first I though maybe it was my needle, so I switched out the needle to not just a new needle but a different brand. Then I thought I might be crazy but I didn`t think so...

Finally I decided to stick it out and see if things got better. After all it is a Christmas project so it will only be out once a year. Well I finally gave up trying (and I mean trying with no success) to keep my stitches even so now they are what they are. If this had been any larger I would have torn it all out.

So I won`t be using bamboo again for hand quilting.

Hope you enjoyed my reviews!

Happy Stitching!

Testing the Iron

I'm home! So after cleaning up my sewing room I thought I'd better test my new iron that I had picked up at the hobby shop.

I tested to see if it would iron out the wrinkles, press open a seam, press seams to one side and iron on freezer paper.

I tried a medium heat setting first but wasn't happy with that so I turned up the heat to almost maximum. Then it was hot!

It did ok on the wrinkle test. I pulled out a scrunched scrap from my scrapbox and it did not too bad. It didn't get rid of every wrinkle but I spritzed it with water and it was wrinkle free in no time. So far so good!

Then I took some 2"square scraps to sew together. Here is my seam pressed open...I loved how the irons' pointy tip zipped right through that seam. It was a nice clean press.  Even better! I sometimes like to press seams open especially on little quilts so I can already see that the iron will be useful.

Next was the test to press seams to one side...it was ok...but I'll use my regular iron for this task. The larger the area to press the less well it worked. When I started pressing seams that were overlapping it didn't have the heat to get a really flat seam.

Here is a closeup and it's fine...but...

Finally I ironed on some freezer paper and it worked well for that. It would be really great when doing small pieces. With a big iron they sometimes get caught and get turned upside down. I don't think this would happen with this little iron.

Now what about the product itself? It is definately a man tool. There is nothing pretty about it. And it has some things I really don't like. It's handle stays nice and cool but...if you touch ANY other part of it while it's hot then you'll be hot too. That includes the dial to regulate the heat setting. Ouch! And it includes the metal section of the handle. If your hand slips down or if you reach out your finger for more leverage (without thinking about it!) then you'll have a hot little finger. And one more thing..the little stand is HOT too!

I also learned that I missed my steam..I know many people don't use steam when pressing seams for a quilt but I am a careful presser and I LOVE steam. For me it makes a difference.

So will I keep using it? Sometimes...when I am working on a small quilt where I am pressing seams open I will and when I want a little iron next to me at my sewing machine I will. And it might be useful for paperpiecing as well.  But for general use I won't use it too often. I am a little disappointed.

So now I will be starting the next challenge...`The Quilt Show` Espisode 105

Happy Stitching!