It Works for Me...Not Hurting Now!

January and the first few months of the New Year is my favorite time of year,  'cause I spend  most of my time sewing/piecing/quilting.    Right now I need to make things to re-stock my ETSY store after the Christmas selling season, and it calls for long hours at the sewing machine.


Since I am doing my  marathon sewing/piecing right now, I got out my slanted stand thingie my brother-in-law made for me years ago.  It was actually made for a different machine that was not quite as wide as this one, but it still works fine.  I can sew for longer periods of time without hunching over my machine and getting a sore neck & shoulders.
  

Yes, I know you can use those ugly rubber door stops at the back of your machine, but this "Janome baby" of mine is heavy and big (Janome 6500P) and I want it to stay safe and the weight evenly distributed.


If you have a handy man in your house (or you have your own "pink" tool set), maybe  you'd like to make one.  

Can you tell how easy it is to see where your stitching, instead of hunching over?  I can actually scoot my sewing chair up close enough and sit back in it to get some back support. 

Mine is long enough that I can keep my small clipping scissors or my ....(shall I say it??) ....seam ripper... on the RH side of the plexiglass.





Simple, yet very effective!  That's 1/4"  thick plexiglass and two pieces of hardwood, not quite 1 inch square and wood screws.   Knowing my brother in law, he used what he had in his shop.

What are some of your sewing room gadgets that make your sewing easier and more enjoyable for you?

Thanks for visiting and leaving your comment.

Scraps & Fabric Prices Rising

Today I want to talk saving/using SCRAPS!   Ok..I know, it's another one of my many resolutions this year....using up my scraps.


Everytime I start to throw some fabric scraps away, I think about the cost of my fabrics and the prices rising this year.  Cotton prices have already  risen, so we are already starting to see increases in the pricing structure of our fabrics.  Fabrics that used to cost us $7-8 a yard are now priced at $9-10 a yard.

There's so many ways to use our scraps and lots of bloggers/quilters are joining in on the fun!  I thought I'd share a few of the ideas for saving/using our scraps that I've recently seen. 



Here's Bonnie's solution to saving/storing scraps.  It's a long read, but one that will get you thinking. 

 http://www.quiltville.com/scrapusersystem.shtml

 

Okay, so we've got the cutting & storing down....now what to do with them?

  

Shannon at Fabrics 'n Quilts has created a Scrap Quilt Challenge we can all join.   Click on her link to see her start of using up some scraps.

 http://fabricsnquilts.blogspot.com/2010/12/beginning-of-scrap-quilt.html

I love this pattern for using hexagons.  And I've got a plastic bin full of these...mmmmh!  Paulette always has good ideas on her blog too.

http://sweetp-paulette.blogspot.com/search?q=hexagons

I like to use some of my scraps to make small dolly quilts like this one. 

 

I also like to use some  my scraps for my never ending hexagon project.........

Or cutting circles for making yo-yo's.........

So, there you have it.......just a few ways for saving/using your scraps and I know there's plenty more.

How do you like to use up your scraps??

Thanks for visiting.

Keeping This One!

One of my New Year Resolutions that's at the top of my LOOOOOOOOOONG list of them is to save some extra money for Quilty Fun.  I love to go to Quilt Shows, Shop Hops, and just  one nighter trips to visit other Quilt Shops (I have cats and can't stay longer).

You might like to see how I plan on accomplishing this.  (Well....if you don't want to see then you can just stop reading now and go back to your email.)  

I started doing this a long time ago when my Tied Together Bee went on a 2 day Shop Hop. Oh what fun we had!   We rented a 9 passenger van, and took eats, pillows, cameras,.....and of course money & credit cards.  We filled up the back area of that van with lots of goodies on the way home.

I took a couple of pictures of past trips, printed them out and taped them to this jar....more inspiration to save!

I know it doesn't look like much now......but Hey, it's only January 2nd!!   It's worked for me in the past, so I say "GO WITH WHAT WORKS". 

What are some of your resolutions this year??

Thanks for visiting.

We Have a Winner - Lucky 13

Sure hope you enjoyed my one day HAPPY NEW YEAR giveaway for the GO cutter fusible fabric hearts.   It has ended and we  have one lucky winner. 

I use my own private special random generator to select the numbers for my giveaways.  I called my sister in Wyoming and told her to choose a number between 1 and 60.  She laughed and said #13.

Congratulations go to Needled Mom in California.  Please send me your mailing address to sewfunquilts at sbcglobal dot net, and I'll get them to you on Monday.

Thanks everyone and I hope you had some fun.  I know I did.

Happy New Year Giveaway!

Happy New Year everyone!  


As I reflect on 2010, it has been a good year for me with all the Free Giveaways I've won.  AND.....winning the AccuQuilt GO cutter and EQ7 were the absolute best!  So, I decided I'd have a Free Giveaway just for the fun of it.

Hey.....it's my FREE Giveaway, so guess I'll make you work for it a bit.  Get to reading!

If you haven't seen or heard about the AccuQuilt GO cutter go read about it here.   It is the greatest tool/accessory for quilting that has come along since the introduction of the rotary cutter.  It has made my cutting for my quilt projects and my ETSY Store so much easier.  I sell charm squares for quilts and jelly rolls and I've doubled my charm squares & jelly roll colorways since I won the GO.




 

Here's a few of them I've cut with my GO CUTTER.

Okay.....I know you want to know about my FREE Giveaway.  Well, since I won the GO cutter I've been cutting a lot of things and with Valentine's Day coming up soon I thought I'd cut some hearts.  Here's a bunch of LOVE for you;  fabric heart applique's  ranging in size from 2 1/2" to 4 1/2"  already fused with iron on fusible and cut with my GO cutter.  There's 20 of 'em for one lucky winner!  

This one is Easy - Peasy....no hoops to jump through, no websites to visit (although it would be nice if you'd go check out my ETSY store to see if there's anything you'd like to buy..tee hee), no pasting on your blog, no shout out on Facebook (I already did that.) no tweeting to do (I already did that one too.).

All you have to do is be a follower of my blog and leave a comment here.  A winner will be chosen 1/1/2011 at 4pm and posted here.  Good Luck.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011!!  

Thanks for visiting.

Giveaway has ended.  Comments are closed.

LUCKY ME! Again......and UFO's......Again.

Thanks to Kelly at I Have A Notion I was the lucky winner of this beautiful book - Threads, the basics & beyond, by Debbie Bates & Liz Kettle on one of her recent giveaways. 

Just to tease you all a bit.....here's an inside page.  And there's 176 of these yummy pages in it.  Boy, am I ever going to have fun playing with some of these ideas.

 If you're not familiar with IHAN, go visit her store now.   She carries all the latest gadgets, notions, & stuff any quilter or sewing enthusiast would want or need.   Thanks sew much, Kelly....you're the best!

Last post I showed you a small wall hanging I was working on.  TA DA!!   It's finished and just in time for Valentine's Day.  It's for sale in my Etsy store.   It sure felt good to cross that off my HUGE ufo list.  There's only 22 more to go.  lol.

Thanks for visiting. 

AM I REALLY GETTING A HEAD START?

My sister challenged me to count my UFO's and try to get them all eliminated somehow; finish them, give them away, sell them, donate them or ???  I'm going to start today and get a head start on them for this next year!

So, as I was straightening up my sewing room (you notice I didn't say cleaning, didn't you?)  I found a UFO here, there and one hiding here, and another one in a box, and another one in a plastic zipper bag with the fabrics for borders, and another one just piled on my cutting table, and lots of them in plastic bins (get the idea I have a lot of them??).....I decided to list them out and put the list right behind my sewing machine on my old design foam board. 

With Christmas activities over, except for enjoying cold turkey sandwiches and cleaning up messes, I took a break, grabbed one of the easiest UFO'S to finish and started........

Can you see the list and how long it is??  Yikes!


Maybe I need to do one of those countdowns on my blog for finishing up UFO's  ????  I can think of lots of excuses for not doing that;  I've got too many, the list is too long, they're old, they're boring, I don't like them anymore........AND I've got so many new ideas swimming around in my head.

This is the time of the year, when we all start to make plans, dreams, ideas for 2011.  Yeah, sure.....fix that, save for that, pay off the credit cards, save for that, buy that, fix that......pay off the credit cards, buy more fabric, fix that, save for that, buy more fabric, finish the ufo's, maybe................maybe. 

Am I really getting a head start?

What about you?



Thanks for visiting.