Working in a quilt shop, there is one question that I get asked more often than any other: "Which [fusible/ruler/pen/thread/etc] do you use?" With so many options available to them, it's no small wonder that people want to cut to the chase and be referred to one product, especially if they're trying something new. I do it all the time too, especially if I walk in to a store where I am only familiar with the most basic of basics. For example, if I walk into Ulta, I'm like, "Gee there's someone who's got their business under control, they will obviously know what the best products are." (Because, clearly I don't...one degree of humidity and POOF I look like this guy...but I digress)
While I may not know much about concealers and hair-taming concoctions, I do know what my sewing preferences are. No one has a foolproof methodology, and a product to my liking may not be to the liking of someone else. Here are my preferences...what are yours?
Starch, or no starch?
It depends on what I'm doing and why. Generally, no starch. But if I am working with a lot of bias, or small pieces, then yes on the starch.
Starch Brand?
I prefer Mary Ellen's Best Press. The rose and the mint ones smell SO good and they don't leave flakes.
Steam, or no steam?
Steam, always.
Prewash, or don't prewash?
I don't prewash my fabrics. However, if someone has given me fabric that HAS been prewashed (which is very rare) then whatever I am putting with it, I will prewash. I subscribe to the school of thought that either your prewash all of it, or prewash none of it.
Cut, or tear?
CUT. The tearing of fabric wakes up the little OCD goblin and drives me nuts. And yes, I know it makes it more straight on grain, but I hate the fuzzy edges which I would have to trim off anyway.
Mix batiks, or segregate batiks?
I like the look of mixing batiks with non batiks.
Thread Type?
For piecing, I always use cotton. For quilting, if not cotton, then I will use rayon because I like the sheen of it against the fabric.
Thread Brand?
Gutermann, Presencia or Sulky for my top thread, Superior Bottom line for my bobbin.
Fusible Brand?
Heat n'Bond. I prefer their "Lite" fusible.
Window your fusible, or not to window your fusible?
It depends on how intricate the appliques will be and how small the pieces get. I am not THAT dedicated to windowing. If it is a medium to large pieces, then yes. Smaller than that, no probably not.
Batting Type?
I LOVE the way wool looks when it's been heavily quilted, so use that quite a bit. But, if I don't want that toasty of a quilt, and I need it to lay flatter for hanging, then a medium to low loft cotton.
Batting Brand?
For wool, The Tuscany Collection. For cotton, Warm & Natural, or Hobb's Heirloom. Whichever I find first.
Spray Baste, or Pin?
If it's a baby quilt or wall hanging, then I spray baste. Anything bigger than that, I pin.
Spray Baste Brand?
Metter or 505.
Machine Needle Brand?
Schmetz, always. I tried Klasse needles, and they were terrible.
Go-To Machine Needle Type?
I use a Schmetz Microtex sharp 80/12 for all of my piecing. I will use it for quilting too, but only with cotton thread. If I am quilting with anything other than cotton I will use a Schmetz Metallic needle 90/14.
Ruler Brand?
Creative Grids. Those rulers are worth every cent.
Rotary Cutter Brand?
I have a pressure sensitive rotary cutter that I love. I never have to worry about leaving my blade out because the cover retracts only when you apply pressure to it.
Sharpen blades, or just replace?
Replace. I tried a few sharpeners but the time it took to get the blade back to a usable sharpness wasn't worth it.
Marking Pencil, or Marking Chalk?
I have a Sewline mechanical pencil that I love. I prefer mechanical pencils to wooden ones anyway, so the fact that there is one for sewing kicks ass. I use the regular lead and the white lead the most.
Air Soluble, or Water Soluble Pens?
Water. I find with air soluble I don't get back to the project quick enough and the lines have faded already.
Quarter Inch Foot, or Walking Foot?
Quarter Inch Foot. I have only ever had to use a Walking Foot once.
Hand sew, or machine sew binding?
For all the complaining I do about binding, I much prefer the look of a hand sewn binding.
Wide backing, or regular backing?
Regular. The greigh goods used for wide backings are still not quite as nice as those used for regular 44" cotton.
Pieced backing, or plain backing?
Plain...I like the look of pieced backings, but once I am done with a quilt top I like to fiddle with the back as little as possible because I usually have another project I need to get to.
Pincushion Style?
I love the convenience of the magnetic pincushions, so that is what I use most often. The one I use for classes or get-togethers is a regular stab-them-in kind.
Thimble Style?
Okay, fine, I'll say it....I hate using thimbles. I have a hard time with them because they feel cumbersome and I don't feel like I have tactile control over the needle. But when I must use a thimble, I like the cheapy, adjustable plastic ones that cover the pad of the finger, but not the fingernail.
Other preferences?
- I prefer to sew barefoot.
- I am a much more productive night-time quilter.
- I prefer Netflix/DVR to music when I'm sewing.
- I do ALLLL the cutting that is possible, excluding borders, before I sew a stitch
- My design wall is the felty side of a $1.84 vinyl tablecloth. Id on't know how I lived without that thing.
- I'm a bad kid who uses a rotary cutter instead of a seam ripper
- I never choose my binding until the quilt is quilted, and I rarely choose the borders until the center is complete.
What are your preferred quilting products and techniques? I'd love to hear!
Showing posts with label Quilting Notions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quilting Notions. Show all posts
Monday, June 30, 2014
Friday, November 18, 2011
Product Review: Sewline Quick Thru Needle Threader
Sewline is a company that specializes in sewing and quilting notions, with their most well known product being the mechanical Sewline Fabric Pencil. They are growing more and more popular as a company, as people look for new gadgets to make their quilting process easier. Their pencils are indeed absolutely fabulous, but that's a review for another day. This time around I'll be reviewing their Quick Thru Needle Threader.
This guy.
What a fabulous idea! it looks like a lipstick case, but when you pull the top down, there's a needle threader! And, if you pull the bottom lid off, there's a little case to hold spare needles. What a cute little package, huh? That being said, Sewline, I'm taking you to the woodshed. While this is a great idea for a product, it would be so much nicer if it actually functioned properly. This thing is not well constructed at all. The threading piece is extremely fragile and it was my experience, as well as that of several of our shop's customers, that it broke after less than 10 uses. Now I was gentle with it, and I know my customers (this group of ladies have been handstitching for decades, I know they know how to use a needle threader properly) were too, yet this thing broke.
Thinking we might have recieved a bad shipment of threaders, we called the company to let them know that, "Hey, just so you know all of your threaders broke for us and our customers, so we have reason to believe that we recieved a shipment of defective threaders. What are you going to do about it for us?" Get ready for this: They told us that they knew they were defective when they sent them out, but we're in luck because they're selling replacement cartridges for us to buy to sell to our customers at $5. Basically, in order for the $10ish threader to work like it should have when it was purchased, our customers were expected by the company to buy a $5 replacement cartridge AND the company knew about it. Pretty sneaky on Sewline's part and that's a $15 threader now! Needless to say, we didn't charge for the replacement cartridge because that's pretty bogus.
As an idea, this product is great. If our experience with the threaders involved them being functional right out of the package, I'd give this product 4 stars, easy. But that was not the case, and so the Sewline Quick Thru Needle Threader gets:
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Product Review: Heat n' Bond Feather Weight
If you do fusible applique, then at the very least you have heard of the brand Heat n' Bond, if not used it yourself. There are a few good fusibles out there on the market, and I have found through trial and error that Heat n' Bond products work the best for me. Not that the others, like Steam-A-Seam or MistyFuse, don't work well; they do, but I like the results I get with Heat n' Bond better.
Anyway, so Heat n' Bond has developed and released their response to MistyFuse and the other very light fusibles, which is their Feather Weight brand. We got it in at the shop for Carol and I, since we do a lot of applique, to test and see what we thought. Our opinions differ. I like Feather Weight, and actually I prefer it to Heat n' Bond Lite (my previous staple). I concede, however, that Feather Weight has some...idiosyncrasies. But once you know how to deal with and counteract those quirks, it's a wonderful, wonderful thing to have on hand.
Feather Weight really is just that...it is light as a feather! I have a tendency to go for patterns and designs that pile layer upon layer, and so the thinner the fusible, the better. But like I said, there are some idiosyncrasies. When the fusible comes off the roll, Heat n' Bond has affixed the plastic instruction sheet to the inside (fusible) side of the roll. The adhesive is so thin that trying to pull that instruction sheet off without tearing a wide swath from the middle is both an exercise in patience and dexterity. I have found it difficult not to lose an inch or two from the end that I peel the sheet off of, but I have also found that once you get it started and it stops tearing, it can be ripped right off like usual. Also, if you pull the sheet off just a few inches past where you're planning to cut your piece off, the fusible won't tear when you go for another piece and have to tear the instructions off again.
Speaking of instructions, this is the one fusible where I do in fact follow them. You absolutely cannot use a higher iron setting on this stuff, because the fusible is so thin it'll just dissolve away if you do. It on;y takes a second or two to adhere it to your fabric, but once it's on there, it's fabulous. Because of its thinness, it's able to be repositioned on your applique. The drawback on that thinness though is that repeated ironing, when you assemble your applique, makes the fusible dissovle a little more each time so you may find your corners coming up as you stitch everything down if you're working on a more intricate project.
So with Heat n' Bond Featherweight, its assets are also its liabilities. I have found, however, that it is more beneficial than not and it's definitely a product worth giving a try.
I give Heat n' Bond Feather Weight...
Friday, September 23, 2011
Top 5 Quilting Notions and Tools I Can't Live Without
1. Omnigrid 4" Needlecraft Scissors
I LOVE these scissors. Seriously. I carry them with me always (well, except on planes) because they are useful for so much. While I don't care for their rulers, one of the great things about Omnigrid Scissors is that they stay sharp for a very long time and these little guys are no exception; we use Omnigrid scissors at the shop and after 7 years they have not dulled. These are great for cutting out applique, because the tip is so sharp it cleanly gets into any of the teeny corners your applique may have. They're perfect for keeping by your machine for snipping threads, because they stay out of the way. But most of all, these have replaced my seam ripper and my seam snip scissors. The tip of these scissors is so small and SO sharp it gets in under the stitches of a seam easier than a plain ol' seam ripper, in my opinion. We do carry these at The Cotton Patch, so if you want to give 'em a try, come on in!
2. Atlas Gardening Gloves
Here's a secret - the best quilting gloves I have ever had were a pair of my Mom's gardening gloves. She turned me on to this, too! These are Atlas brand gardening gloves, and the palm surface of the glove is rubberized from the tips of your fingers to the heel of your hand. This gives you a greater surface gripping area while you're quilting your quilt, therefore you have less slippage and greater control than you do with quilting gloves that have finger grips only. The back of them are cloth so they breath very nicely - no sweaty hands! Plus, you can get them very inexpensively (less than $5 at Fred Meyer here in Oregon, comparably priced at places like Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, etc) and they last for a long time. They seriously facilitate the quilting process on a domestic machine.
3. Bamboo Stiletto
We have these at the shop. They're exactly what they sound like. It's a stiletto. It's made of bamboo. What I like so much about it is that it's double ended; there is a thicker side for more heavy duty tasks, and a thinner sharper side for normal stiletto duties. I like these better than the metal ones, because the metal ones have a tendency to dull over time and separate from their handles. Bamboo stilettos come in one whole piece, it's durable, keeps its point and it's a very sustainable and renewable resource. They are inexpensive so you get a lot of bang for your buck, because they are great for more than just guiding fabric through your feed dogs. I use it for applique, scrapbooking, working with polymer clay...it's great.
4. Emery Board
Yes. A regular, plain ol' emergy board. Dollar Store, Rite Aid, Target...they can be found everywhere, eveb gas station quickie marts. For one, I break nails all the flippin' time, even quilting, so I need 'em. But what I really use them for most is after ripping out a seam, it gets those stray threads out better than anything else I have tried. There is no way I'm going to pick those little things out by hand, so running an emery board over those threads (gently!) works like a dream and a $2 pack will literally last you years because the surface won't wear down quickly on snipped threads.
5. Applique Pressing Sheet
We have these at the shop. If you do fusible applique, this thing comes in handy like you wouldn't believe. You can build your appliques up and fuse them together before positioning them on your background. It helps ensure that you get your image put together correctly before it's fused to tha background and it's too late to fix it. It's transluscent so that helps you see your fabrics and lines as needed. It's also great for fusing Angelina Fibers, using to catch hot glue, or using any glue on because it'll peel or wash right off, no problems. They are reasonably priced and last for ages.
I LOVE these scissors. Seriously. I carry them with me always (well, except on planes) because they are useful for so much. While I don't care for their rulers, one of the great things about Omnigrid Scissors is that they stay sharp for a very long time and these little guys are no exception; we use Omnigrid scissors at the shop and after 7 years they have not dulled. These are great for cutting out applique, because the tip is so sharp it cleanly gets into any of the teeny corners your applique may have. They're perfect for keeping by your machine for snipping threads, because they stay out of the way. But most of all, these have replaced my seam ripper and my seam snip scissors. The tip of these scissors is so small and SO sharp it gets in under the stitches of a seam easier than a plain ol' seam ripper, in my opinion. We do carry these at The Cotton Patch, so if you want to give 'em a try, come on in!
2. Atlas Gardening Gloves
Here's a secret - the best quilting gloves I have ever had were a pair of my Mom's gardening gloves. She turned me on to this, too! These are Atlas brand gardening gloves, and the palm surface of the glove is rubberized from the tips of your fingers to the heel of your hand. This gives you a greater surface gripping area while you're quilting your quilt, therefore you have less slippage and greater control than you do with quilting gloves that have finger grips only. The back of them are cloth so they breath very nicely - no sweaty hands! Plus, you can get them very inexpensively (less than $5 at Fred Meyer here in Oregon, comparably priced at places like Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, etc) and they last for a long time. They seriously facilitate the quilting process on a domestic machine.
3. Bamboo Stiletto
We have these at the shop. They're exactly what they sound like. It's a stiletto. It's made of bamboo. What I like so much about it is that it's double ended; there is a thicker side for more heavy duty tasks, and a thinner sharper side for normal stiletto duties. I like these better than the metal ones, because the metal ones have a tendency to dull over time and separate from their handles. Bamboo stilettos come in one whole piece, it's durable, keeps its point and it's a very sustainable and renewable resource. They are inexpensive so you get a lot of bang for your buck, because they are great for more than just guiding fabric through your feed dogs. I use it for applique, scrapbooking, working with polymer clay...it's great.
4. Emery Board
Yes. A regular, plain ol' emergy board. Dollar Store, Rite Aid, Target...they can be found everywhere, eveb gas station quickie marts. For one, I break nails all the flippin' time, even quilting, so I need 'em. But what I really use them for most is after ripping out a seam, it gets those stray threads out better than anything else I have tried. There is no way I'm going to pick those little things out by hand, so running an emery board over those threads (gently!) works like a dream and a $2 pack will literally last you years because the surface won't wear down quickly on snipped threads.
5. Applique Pressing Sheet
We have these at the shop. If you do fusible applique, this thing comes in handy like you wouldn't believe. You can build your appliques up and fuse them together before positioning them on your background. It helps ensure that you get your image put together correctly before it's fused to tha background and it's too late to fix it. It's transluscent so that helps you see your fabrics and lines as needed. It's also great for fusing Angelina Fibers, using to catch hot glue, or using any glue on because it'll peel or wash right off, no problems. They are reasonably priced and last for ages.
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