Various & Sundry 2018 #11

Quilt World News

Donate to the International Quilt Study Center. They are 10 years old and asking for $10.

The Ruby Star Society has been announced. The designers from Cotton + Steel have formed this new association. Their new fabric collection is expected in the Summer of 2019. They will be working with Moda. The Fat Quarter Shop has a blog post with a link to the video they posted on Instagram. I am kind of sad about the Moda connection. Moda does have great designers, but their greige goods are too ravely for me.

Take the QuiltCon survey.

Techniques

Charlotte Scott, the Slightly Mad Quilt Lady, wrote a great blog post on the differences between silk organza and tulle.

All People Quilt has a great video called Add Binding with an Easy Invisible Join. It is a little over 4 minutes, doesn’t require any special equipment and is straightforward and easy. I have used it three times recently and it is easy to follow. It is a lot easier to follow than trying to use the Fons & Porter Binding Tool that I have been using. An added bonus is that the technique doesn’t require any special equipment.

Annie’s Crafts has a scrappy binding tutorial that looks interesting. I haven’t tried it. Cost is $19.99.

I found a group called the Bay Area Sewists. They have some good benefits if one joins. Sadly, it is located a little far from my sphere, but some readers might find a home there.

Abby-Shane of Bay Quilts has a GoFundMe page for her dog, Riley-Jay (no relation 😉   ). she is trying to raise $6,000.

Patterns, Projects & Tutorials

The San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles is partnering with the San Jose Police Department on the gun buyback in December. Now they need a little money to help with the program. Check the GoFundMe site to contribute. You can also send a quilt to the museum that will be given to someone who sells a gun. Even if San Jose is not your area, help get guns off the streets.

Laura Kemshall talks about garment sewing on a recent post. She has some links to documentaries about the environmental devastation of fast fashion. She provides a link to garment sewing tips on the DMTV blog as well.

April responded to my Ring Toss post with the information that “Jenny from One Block” is the name of a pattern booklet and Halo top is one of the projects in the booklet. She provided a Fat Quarter Shop link, which I have provided for you. The FQS link shows some of the other projects, which are mildly interesting. It is also interesting that the pattern booklet has more than one project. Perhaps there are not enough projects to call it a book?

On Instagram, @Lillyellasworld has a sew-a-long happening for the Undercover Maker’s Mat. The pattern is free. Despite the foundation piecing, I am thinking of making one for retreats. I can’t see using it at home, but it would be really useful to keep everything organized on retreats. I know you are wondering about the Crafty Gemini Sewing Machine Table Mat & Organizer. I made it (and am not showing  it to you yet, because it will be a gift, so stay tuned) and am not super happy with it. I didn’t do a crappy job and it isn’t ugly, but it isn’t for me. It’s possible I won’t like the Undercover Maker’s Mat either in which case I will try the Love of Patchwork & Quilting version or one of 5 dozen other free tutorials that are available.

I read the AllPeopleQuilt newsletter. They had a link to the One Milllion Pillowcase challenge, which I thought might be useful to reiterate. The newsletter also had a lunch sack gift bag pattern. If you want a super simple gift bag pattern (use fabric, don’t keep buying paper wrapping paper), I have a pattern on the tutorials page. These gift bags are reusable, so you get to see your fabulous fabric every year and you don’t have to make a Christmas quilt. You can also use them for other holidays or events by switching out fabric.

Sunshine Linus has a whole list of free patterns they use to make items for populations in need. Walker bags, wheelchair quilts and weighted blankets are among the projects.

AgileJack has a zipper pouch tutorial.

The Sew Powerful Purse program “helps girls get the supplies they need to stay in school all month. It also supports seamstresses in Lusaka, Zambia in a thoughtful and wise way.”

Bonnie Hunter has put out the introductory post for her 2018 mystery quilt, which starts on November 23.

Media

After reading my post about the Westchester Dolman top fabric selection, Glenna sent me a site about making selections for clothing fabric online. I don’t know how many more garments I will make, but I always say that, don’t I? She also said “There is also a podcast “Love to Sew” – February 5, Fabric 101 at around 23 min – they talk about weight and give you some websites.” Perhaps we can all learn together. Thanks, Glenna!!!

Weeks Ringle wrote a post about quilting magazines as an endangered species. Mostly it is a reassurance to her customers that their publications will not go away. She makes one good point, though. The magazine production process has such a long lead time that the fabrics used are not longer available once the magazine comes out. This makes me thinking of the whole fabric design and production process (in a very superficial way). People who buy magazines can’t find the fabric in the quilt. Designers want to put out as many fabric lines as possible so they can make some money. Fabric companies want fresh new stock and can’t keep everything in print. The quilting customers only have a certain amount of money and can’t buy everything. Also, customers (at least what I have seen and heard) are overwhelmed by their own fabric collections and have cut back on buying. It sounds like a perfect storm business model that no longer works. I like to be inspired by quilt magazines and almost never want to use the fabrics shown. I have done that once in awhile, though. Remember Fresh Fruit? We have to learn to see the pattern for itself and separate out the fabric, I think.

Try out the Tineye Reverse Image search. It isn’t Google. It is described at the beSpacific website as ““Using TinEye, you can search by image or perform what we call a reverse image search. You can do that by uploading an image or searching by URL. You can also simply drag and drop your images to start your search. TinEye constantly crawls the web and adds images to its index. Today, the TinEye index is over 32.1 billion images.
When you search with TinEye, your image is never saved or indexed. TinEye adds millions of new images from the web every day—but your images belong to you. Searching with TinEye is private, secure, and always improving…””

Fabric, Tools & Supplies

I mentioned that I bought the Halo Top templates from a shop called The Sewing Party that had a vendor booth at PIQF. I took a look at the online shop and really like the look of the fabrics in the shop.

MadamSew has replacement rotary cutting blades for a special price of $10.99. They claim to fit a variety of different brands of rotary cutters. I have not tried these blades and still use LP Sharp, because they recycle blades.

Alison Glass has a new line of stationery and paper goods. There are a few things in her shop now with more expected.

According to the Cutting Edge, the Olfa newsletter, “2019 is going to be a BIG year for the rotary cutter. It’s turning 40!! OLFA invented the rotary cutter back in 1979. It revolutionized the quilting and sewing industries!” Lots of exclamation points, I know. My first teacher did not teach rotary cutting to beginners, so I cut templates with template plastic and scissors for my first quilt. I am glad I did. It gave me a sense of how pieces are put together. Still, I wouldn’t give up my rotary cutter now.

I saw Unique Sewing Furniture at PIQF. They had a booth and their flyer says they are affiliated with Meissner Sewing and Vacuum Centers. They are a manufacturer of semi-custom sewing furniture, apparently based in Wyoming. I am casually in the market for a new sewing machine table, though my bank account does not agree. Their website is a little old and clunky. I’d rather see some thumbnails next to the product descriptions. As it is the visitor has to click on the model number to see a photo of the table. That makes for a lot of clicking back and forth.

Author: JayeL

Quiltmaker who enjoys writing and frozen chocolate covered bananas.

2 thoughts on “Various & Sundry 2018 #11”

  1. Thanks for the link to the binding technique. I have the Fons and Porter tool and find it awkward to use. Not to mention that I get an extra twist in the binding every single time!

    I have a feeling that American Patchwork and Quilting had no idea when they started that it would take so long to get to a million pillowcases. Kudos to them for continuing to promote it. I’m sure other organizations would have quietly taken it off the website a couple years ago.

    1. I am with you. Somehow the Fons & Porter binding tool just don’t work for me. I have used that binding video a few times and have had no problems. It is my new go-to binding tool.

      I found it hard to figure out where to contribute when I went to the website, but that was a awhile ago. You make an excellent point. I didn’t think of that.

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