Stop staring and start sewing!

Are you sitting on a gold mine? Go check your stash

When I was selling fabric I always carried everything from Jennifer Paganelli (because it's all perfect, it just is).  Well, if you were a customer and bought some of the Loopy Vintage Floral from her Flower Power collection (it was a couple of years ago and is now out of print), you may want to check your stash.  I knew something was up when I recieved a couple of emails from etsy shoppers looking for this fabric and when I was told they'd pay 80.00 a yard for it I really knew something was up.  Check this out!  A 20" piece recently sold on ebay for 145.00 (that is not a mis-print on my part)!

So if you need some sweet moolah right now you should start digging through all that fabric and see what you've got.  Crazy.  Here's a picture of all of the colors of the Loopy Vintage Floral to jog your memory.  Good luck and go to it!

 

I saw this cool little trolley at IKEA and knew I wanted it but waited a bit.  Then I saw all the cool kids were getting one and posting about them and I knew I'd better run back before everyone figured out how neato they were (and that color!).  So now it's mine and I love it.  I keep all my goodies that I like on hand and just wheel it around wherever I'm working.  It reminds me of a phlebotomist's cart for some reason.

 

Here's how I have it configured right now.  Loving it.  And once I finish replacing the carpet in the other room I will roll it all over the place.  I may even stack the cats and let them ride in it.

And here's what happens when you ask a guy for help filling a spool of thread.  I needed a second spool of the new heavy duty thread Joey picked up for me because my new (used) industrial machine fills the bobbin from one spool (while I'm sewing, yes!) and uses the other spool for sewing.  He found an empty serger thread spool and grabbed his power drill and there you have it.  A second spool of heavy duty thread.  A handy dude is good to have around the sewing room.

 

Now go check your stash for that fabric!  Valentines Day is coming and you could buy an up-grade on your fancy dinner or something.

The Scrappy Trip Along will suck you in

I couldn't help it.  So many folks were doing the Scrappy Trip Along that I finally decided to give a block a try.  It was so much fun and once I had my 6 fabric strips cut it only took 25 minutes to sew the block together.  I'm not sure what my finished project will be (a lap quilt?, something cute to drape over the couch?....I'll figure it out).  I know I want some good pinks and oranges in there and something dark to make it interesting and not too washed out.

Here are my first two.  I re-positioned some of the strips from the picture above in order to have the dark color going through the middle on all of them.  I like it!  And, as a former fabric store owner, I have oodles of scraps to play with.

I even splurged on a 2 1/2 inch ruler (normally 18.99 but I had a 50% off coupon).  So I'm building a stash of strips and having some fun.  No rush, just fun.

You can go to the flickr page here, find the neato tutorial here, use the hashtag #ScrappyTripAlong to find it on Instagram, or just google "Scrappy Trip Along" or "Scrappy Trip Around The World" for oodles and oodles of inspiration.  Let me know if you can fight the temptation to join in!

A quick post about a quick project

I was all set to do some amazing baking with my amazing new Kitchen Aid (which I kindly treated myself too because I'm nice like that) last month when I realized I had one stinking oven mitt in the whole house.  Like the complete ADHD type that I am I ran upstairs to remedy that situation immediately.

 

I'd received a bag of goodies from the folks at C&T/Stash Books when I started writing my book last year and there was a package of Insul-Bright in that bag.  You can use it for hot stuff (oven mitts, casserole dish holders, etc) or cold stuff like lunch bags.  I sandwiched one layer (9" x 9") between my fabrics (Red Rose Farm by Elizabeth Schlarb and Peacock Lane by Violet Craft) and grabbed some binding (check out my bias tape tutorial if you want to build up a decent stockpile of bias binding).  Since I was in a hurry (remember, my butter was softening downstairs) I spray basted the layers together first.  Smart move that.

 

I stitched a one inch grid pattern in no time (see my new industrial Juki?!!!  More on that later....).

 

I quickly trimmed and bound the edges (butter....softening...) and was ready to roll (roll dough that is).  I know my binding looks sloppy (I really really prefer sewing it on by hand but the butter...) but I really like these!  It turns out I should've included a thin layer of cotton batting but I'm surprised at how well that flimsy-feeling layer of Insul-Bright works.  They're perfect if I'm pulling something from the oven to set on the stove.  If I need to carry it further, like over to the counter, then I just fold them over so I have doubled insulation.  Thumbs up for Insul-Bright!

Quest for fire, or at the very least some decent steam

You may recall, back in August, I purchased a new Rowenta Steam Station to replace the one I'd had since 2009.  While the first one lasted at least 2 years before it started acting up I only got 4 months out of this new one.  The seal on the steam tank stopped working and it hissed and leaked the whole time it was on (until it ran out of steam, which didn't take too long).  We replaced the o-rings (it comes with spares) and that didn't do a thing for it so back to Macy's it went.

 

So, this is my new baby.  A DeLonghi Stiromeglio Compact PRO 300 Ironing System with Pressurized Boiler.  Sounds impressive.  I like the hook that holds the steam hose.  It keeps water from getting down into the iron so I just get steam and not drips.  It holds more water than the Rowenta too so it will be nice to have to stop and refill it as much.

 

It doesn't have as many steam holes but I'm getting used to that.  It also takes longer to heat up than the Rowenta but that's not a big deal since I'm using it for work most of the time.  I plan on getting a board with a simpler iron for the family to use for their clothes anyway.

 

I'm really liking the cork handle and this iron is seriously hot.  1800 watts but it just feels a lot hotter than the Rowenta.  And at $151.43 it cost me 30.00 less than the Rowenta sales price.  That's nice.

I'm not happy with the quality of the Rowenta products lately and that makes me sad.  I hate seeing a company with a good reputation ruin it's name but lowering their standards.  It happens a lot and we see it in the sewing world too often.  But I do like the opportunity to try something new so I'm kind of excited to give DeLonghi a chance to impress me.  I'd love to hear anyone elses opinion on the DeLonghi products.