One of our favorite blogs is the four-person blog See How We Sew written by four sewing enthusiasts who are also well positioned in the quilting world: Christie Batterman, Laura Nownes, Jennifer Rounds, and Darra Williamson. Each member posts twice a month, giving us wonderful posts twice a week—Tuesdays and Fridays. Each has her own style, personality, and interests. Thus each member’s posts have a different flavor from the others. If you have not had the opportunity to read their blog, scoot over there soon to read a wide variety of offerings. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Darra’s most recent feature has to do with one of our newest pattern lines, Button Madness.  Darra’s post Immerse Yourself in Button Madness not only features one of our designers Teresa Fields and her three new button patterns, but it gives some very interesting history about buttons and button collecting that you might find interesting.

Note:  You will find the button bracelet, button fashion pin, and button napkin ring patterns listed on the JWD website under pattern designer Teresa Fields (currently listed as Quickie Chicks by Teresa Fields). Each button item has its own pattern page.  Here’s a sample of one of our packaged Button Madness patterns:

BTW, we created this packaging, so shop owners can stick these patterns in a container right  next to the button jar…..or at a convenient spot next to a button wall. These patterns are folded to 8 1/2″ high by 1 1/2″ wide.  They are closed on their backside by stickers. Each pattern is filled with two pages of sequential instructions, several illustration photos, hints, and sample photos of the pattern items.  If your store has buttons, we hope you’ll find this patterns very beneficial to your customers and you. You can purchase the patterns from your distributor or from us. Have fun playing with buttons.  Don’t forget to check out See How We Sew.

If you call the Steady Betty company, you will be greeted with a warm friendly hello from Kathy Purdy, owner of Steady Betty. Her company is located in Texas, so she has that wonderful Texan accent. She is very passionate about her Steady Betty products. Kathy gave me detailed information about all of them, which I will share with you over the next few weeks. From what I understand the first product came out about four years ago. That was The Steady Betty Board. Let’s start there.

What is The Steady Betty Board? That is what I first asked Kathy. Here’s her answer: It is a board that is covered with a special material that gently holds fabric in place, making perfectly pressed seams. This board keeps fabric from distorting or stretching. It is especially great for bias edges or bias bindings too.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the Steady Betty Board has a cool-to-the touch surface. For example, if you were making the string of lights on Alex Anderson’s Holiday Lights quilt, your fingers would not get burned, as you pressed these appliquéd pieces. This board does get warm, but your fabric doesn’t get hot and difficult to work with or touch.

The Steady Betty Board would work perfectly with these appliqued tree lights from Alex Anderson’s Holiday Lights quilt. Alex would love this board for her applique pressing—-well, the pieced tree-pressing too.

When I first saw the board, I didn’t think it would work—- but let me tell you it does everything it claims to do. I love it!! The Steady Betty Board comes in three sizes.

Now I know you are wondering the same thing I wondered when I spoke to Kathy.  If her name is Kathy, why isn’t this board named after her? Well, you’re going to have to check back next time I feature one of Kathy’s products to learn the answer.

Until then, happy quilting!

Teresa

Have you ever needed to repair a fallen pants hem or skirt hem? Or what about keeping a shirt collar in place or pockets flush? Well, if anything like that has happened to you, there is a new temporary fabric adhesive that goes on in seconds and dries clear. It is called Lapel Stick. Keeping a Lapel Stick handy for those little emergencies is a good idea.

But I’ve been thinking about other uses too and experimenting with it. Guess what? It can be used for more than just fashion emergencies. There are all kinds of tasks this little Lapel Stick can do for quilters.  It can be used just as easily in crafts, sewing, and embroidery too. Think about this:  It can replace baste stitching, pinning, tapes, spray adhesives, and stabilizers. When I was experimenting with it, I was pleased to find it did not gum up my machine or my needles.  It is water soluble too!  You can use Lapel Stick on cotton, blends, leather, wool, linen, and silk. All you do is twist the cap off and apply it. It can’t get any easier than that!

I think one of the first ways I might use my Lapel Stick is to temporarily hold down the applique pieces when making the quilt Rabbit Tracks by Charlotte Warr Anderson. This quilt is absolutely adorable with those five little bunnies romping around  the quilt.  It doesn’t have to be Easter to make this soooo cute quilt. I’m thinking baby shower or even a birthday.

A Lapel Stick will keep those rabbit pieces perfectly in place while I applique them onto their pieced background blocks—a perfect task for this little stick. To see more of Charlotte Warr Andersen’s award-winning applique quilts, click here.

Well, I’ve got to go now and search for new things to bring you!

Teresa

I went into the Always In Stitches Quilt Shop booth at the Kokomo Quilt Guild’s quilt show and my chocolate alarm went off! On the table there appeared to be a box of chocolates. After further examination I found it was not a box of chocolates, but a box containing 20 laminated cards with chocolate desserts and 20 cards with quilt blocks.

OMG! They have paired scrumptious chocolate desserts with quilt blocks. What a delicious duo! It is called The Little Box of Quilter’s Chocolate Desserts (published by Martingale &Co).  It retails for around $19.95. All the photos were in color and fit ever so nicely in the box with a magnetic closure.

If you are around Always In Stitches Quilt Shop in Noblesville, Indiana  (or at your own local fabric shop) and you’re a chocolate lover, check this great little chocolate-lover treat out.  It looks really yummy!

First things first……Finding new and exciting products to tell you about is such a high for me. I am like a kid in a candy store. That is how I felt when I saw the “Pound Hounds” fabric panel by Sue Marsh. RJR Fabrics really found a talented designer when they found Sue. Can you say “cute?” Being a dog lover, I think the panel is just darling.

Judy Parker of Scrappy Quilting, located in Wanatah, Indiana showed me this panel and several other fabrics that are in the same collection. She sells the panel for $9.00, but she also has a kit that would make a 70″ x 82″ quilt.

Let me tell you about the 3-D fabric! OMG! I never knew they could make such a thing. Did you? Judy showed me a fabric with spaceships on it and asked me to put 3-D glasses on. This I did and suddenly the shapceships looked as if they were floating through space. It was really 3-D. This fabric would be great for the quilt Kids’ Night In (JWD/Christine Porter pattern).

Next, Judy showed me a butterfly-garden fabric. I looked at it with the 3-D glasses on and it looked as if the butterflies were flying through the garden. Hoffman Fabrics creates this fabric, which retails for around $11.00 per yard. Yet another Hoffman 3-D fabric is Snorkeley’s Underwater View, which gives you a realistic underwater scene.

If these fabrics interest you as a shopowner, do contact Hoffman Fabrics. If you are a quilter, run to your favorite quilt shop and ask to see the new Hoffman 3-D fabrics. They are all so much fun!

See you soon!

Teresa

I was quite excited to see the young girl’s demonstration. To begin, all you have to do is cut a square of fabric. The fabric is folded in half and placed in the Kanzashi flower maker. The excess fabric is cut away from the plastic stencil. Then the flower is made petal by petal by hand using a double thread. Creating Kanzashi flowers is oh-so-easy, as our young demonstrator can attest to. If she can make them, so can you! I can hardly wait to make some myself.

These flowers are perfect for  embellishing quilt and sewing projects, as well as accessorizing clothing, jewelry, and home decor projects. The flowers can be elegant or whimsical, depending on your fabric choices and how you finish the flower centers. Clover Needlecraft, Inc. makes this flower tool. It retails for around $6.00. The flowers can be made in four sizes. This looks like a perfect tool to demonstrate in your store. Also, it would be a fun idea for a half-day accessorizing class. Let me know what you think of this tool. I imagine you have many great ideas as to how you can use these flowers in different projects. Love to hear your input.

Talk to you later. I’m off to find some more great quilt products for you!

These last few months I have been searching for the best quilting and sewing products to let you know about. I picked up this product several months ago, but I wanted to give it my own personal test before telling you about it. Now I don’t know about you, but I never have enough light when I am sewing. I ran into the Bendable Bright Light.. Yes, this is the name of it. It is a cool little light that fits on the side of your sewing machine and floods your sewing area with light! It is so small you don’t think it could do that much, but it does. One day I forgot to turn it on and boy did I miss it! I’ll never go back to using just my sewing machine light to sew.

Now here is the scoop:

• It has a non-magnetic mounting bracket that the light snaps into;
• It has a flexible arm that has an eight foot power cord with six removable adhesive clips;
• It has an amazing 100,000 hours of life and no bulb to replace!
• You can buy extra mounting brackets so you can move the light from machine to machine. You could then use it on your sewing machine as well as your serger.

This bendable light sells for approx. $49.95. You can go to www.bendablebrightlight.com and check it out. I love it. Store owners, if you don’t already carry this product, you should consider it, as your customers will love this light. Also, this light solves the problem of sewing in poorly lit classrooms.  Let me know what you think when you get yours.  If you want me to search out a particular type of product for you, let me know.

When you read the JWD Publishing blog I hope you will either be inspired, laugh a little, learn something new, or just feel like you’ve spent a few minutes with a friend. People ask me how I find the products or subjects that I write about. Sometimes I will come up with a product that intrigues me. Other times, it is a product or an idea that someone calls me about. More often than not I will simply be surfing the web and stumble upon something new that I think you need to know about.

So here is something you need to know about— Heat Press Batting Together

Yes, that is the name of the product. What is it?? Heat Press Batting Together™ is a 1 1/2 inch cloth tape on a 10 yard roll. It will allow batting edges to be fused together with a soft fuse that stretches, eliminating the old pinning and stitching of extra batting pieces needed to fit a specific project. The product can be used on any batting content. Think of this— all of those leftover pieces from other projects can be fused together and made large enough to do another quilt. No more waste! This fused batting is easy to needle by hand or machine. What I also love about this product is that it is made in the USA!!

Go to www.heatpressbattingtogether.com and check out Heat Press Batting Together. Then, if you love it as much as I do, ask your local quilt shop to carry this great product.

Thanks for spending time with me!

Teresa

I was starting to get calls from people saying where are you at? There is nothing new on the blog!! Sorry. I have been playing hooky. With the warm weather and the gardening and now the apples are coming in I just got side tracked. But I haven’t forgotten my promise to you to continue to bring you new and unique products.

I do have one thing I would like to share with you. It’s something sad that also caused me to delay from writing on the blog. August 25th my faithful companion Nico, a beautiful German Shepard, died. That morning she was with me in my sewing room. I was designing a new block for Quiltmaker Magazine 100 blocks series that will come out in 2011. I looked at her and said, “I should name this block after you”. She tilted her head like to say, “ya mom that would be great”! It’s a star and she is one of the stars in my life so I thought it would be appropriate. That evening she was sitting at my feet and she had a seizure. Before I could get her to my veterinarian she died. My veterinarian said it was a blood clot to the lung or heart. My husband, my other dog Mystic, and I have been sad for her leaving but are happy that she decide when to go and that we were with her. By the way, the new block is named “Nico’s Star”. I think she would love it!

Let me touch on one product I did find for you. Carol Doak’s Foundation Sheets by C&T Publishing. I have used these myself. You can use them in most inkjet or laser printers or copy machines. No shrinking, curling, or turning brittle! And the best thing is it tears away easily! What makes it different is it is lightweight so, it won’t create bulk. It’s absorbent so less ink transfer where you don’t want it. And it’s non-coated so fabric won’t slip on it! It comes in 100 sheet package for around $10.00. Check it out! See you later, Teresa

I was at a quilting event and there was a lot of chattering about a really cool ruler called Rapid Fire Hunter’s Star. Well, I had to find out what this was all about. You are not going to believe this―Have you ever been afraid of making the Hunter Star block because of the matching in the middle? Not a problem anymore! This Rapid Fire Hunter’s Star ruler makes piecing the block fast and easy. It is based on using strips of fabric. So all those jelly rolls you have around now can be put to good use. It’s easy to use two, three, or four colors in this block with this ruler! 

The ruler comes in two sizes. There is the petite-size ruler for 5″ - 8″ blocks. The larger size makes 7″ – 10″ blocks. Deb Tucker is the “creative kingpin” and she got this right! This is not the only quilt you can make with this ruler. Deb has many other patterns on her website― may I say they’re soooo beautiful too. Instead of me trying to explain how to use this ruler, I would rather you go to www.baysidequilting.com, put Hunter’s Star ruler in the search bar, and  then see a great demo on how to use it (they have Deb’s permission to do this and they did a great job). Then mosey over to Deb’s website, www.studio180design.net and see all of her other products and fabulous patterns. I have two other rulers that Deb has created that I am going to review for you too, but you will have to come back…… The cat needs feeding, so I have to go for now. Everyone stay safe and keep quilting.

Teresa Fields