Sew Expo 2

I got one other amazing thing at Sew Expo!  I forgot, and it's the one thing I'm MOST excited about.  Please don't judge me for being so excited about this, though... the spend-thrift in me is thrilled to the core about this!  It's this fusible stuff that fuses small pieces of batting together super-fast and super-strong so the piece created can be used inside of another quilt.  (Here is the company's website.)  So, you know, all those annoying edges around a large piece of batting that I am forced to cut off because my quilt is smaller?  ALL BETTER because I can just fuse it to another piece, and TA-DA!  Into another quilt it goes!

I used to spend lots of time sewing these pieces together, and let me say, fusing is the way to go -- but it's totally a "Why the hell didn't I think of this?" idea... I was so excited that on Sunday of last weekend (you know, the day after I'd bought the stuff) I spent a short hour and half fusing batting pieces together and getting straight-up organized.

I learned a couple things while I was doing it...and who knows?  There's probably a handy-dandy tutorial on their website that says all of this stuff, but I didn't find it before I went to town fusing away:

1.  The spot where the batting abuts doesn't have to straight, just exactly the same...

So I got around this by laying the batting pieces on top of each other, and cutting through both layers.

Then, I pulled out the little pieces from under each, and the batting matched up exactly.

2.  It is REALLY sticky.

It seems to have the consistency of fusible interfacing you'd use on clothes, as opposed to double-sided fusible interfacing for applique on quilts.  Nevertheless, it's fusible, so I used my scungy iron.  I love this iron.  I wish it wasn't so scungy -- I'd still be using it as my 'daily driver'...but as you can see, it's seen better days...you can see my new daily-driver iron in the back...

And after a short while, my stack of "this is too big to throw away" batting scraps went from a mess to an organized stack of labeled, usable pieces!!

Before

After

I'm off to sew again for at least a little while...I've got lots of batting to quilt up, don't ya know??

Sew Expo

I went to the Sewing Expo at the Puyallup Fairgrounds this last weekend, and had a GREAT time with my friends Susie and KK.  We were all in a clothing-making buying mood, and I got some great pieces for a jacket and a couple of shirts, plus a darling dress pattern, and two new pairs of scissors.

Here's the story on the scissors:  I had two little snips that lived by my sewing machine, BUT then I cleaned up one day, and got all organized probably, and do you think I can find those little snips???  NO!  I'm sure they're in the proverbial "safe place".  But still -- it's very frustrating...so, I bought two NEW small pairs of scissors to live by my sewing machine, and I'm betting that Murphy's Law will kick in very soon and the other two pairs of scissors will magically materialize out of thin air.  Or a storage bin.  And then I'll have a veritable treasure trove of wonderful little pairs of scissors.

I've always wanted some dainty, gold-handled, downright fancy scissors, but for some reason, I've never bought myself any...I have a very well-used pair of silver Gingher scissors, which are shiny, but they're so...well...utilitarian!  So when the one pair of dainty-gold-goodness was under-budget, I decided I 'needed' two pairs of dainty-gold-goodness.

Here they are.  Aren't they pretty??

When the Scissor Man put them in the bag, he said to be careful -- two such pretty scissors were libel to get up to mischief in the bag.  I thought this was very charming -- he said it with such a twinkle in his eye.  He was a very nice and funny man.  But he's right -- they look like they're straight out of the Victorian Era, and if I remember my history correctly, for all their buttoned up appearances, those Victorians liked to party...

OK, I'm going to go do some sewing and use my fancy-dancy new scissors...