Various & Sundry #4- Late March

Fabric, Tools, Supplies & Embellishments

I love the way that this fabric is organized! I would need a much larger closet, though.

I was dying to buy fabric last week, so I washed some of the Great Unwashed and that helped to make me feel like I had some new pretties to pet.

Ruler Recall: Marsha McCloskey sells rulers on her site that make cutting and sewing her Feathered Star blocks easier. She wrote about the ruler recall in her most recent newsletter: “Recently, I learned, much to my dismay, that my last shipment of Precision Trimmer 3 rulers contained defective rulers. Truly, I didn’t know. Rulersmith has produced perfect rulers for me for 15 years. When these rulers were delivered in February 2014, I didn’t check them. My Mom had just passed away and my mind was not on quality control.  The ruler problem is in the placement of the locator hole at the ¼” seam allowance at the corner of the ruler. This hole is used to locate the start and stop point for set-in seams. On the defective rulers, the hole is placed slightly to the right. Not acceptable. I have no idea if all the rulers sold in the last year were made this way or only a portion. Rulersmith has replaced the entire print run with accurate rulers and I will replace your ruler if it is defective.  I will be contacting people who bought the PT3 ruler through my website, but I have no way to identify who might have bought a PT3 from a shop or from me in a class. You will need to identify yourself, so I can replace the defective ruler with a good one. Please, go to the special PT3 RECALL page on my website and follow the directions if you want your ruler replaced. There is a special page for this issue. You can now use PayPal on her site and a lot of her fabrics are on sale for $6/yard.

These notebooks are clever and creative. I love them except for the part about kids using them in school!

Are you a Frixon pens fan? I found a new product that provides another use for those pens. “Rocketbook, designed by startup Rocket Innovations, looks and feels like a traditional paper notebook and pen combination, but it uses heat-sensitive ink and is paired with a smart app. (The pens, FriXion ballpoints by Pilot, are cheap and easy to find at places like Staples.) When you stick the 8.5-inch-by-11-inch notebook in the microwave for 30 seconds, all 100 of its pages are cleared, so it’s infinitely reusable. Its paper features a dot grid pattern that makes it a good sketchbook for designers, typographers, and architects.

Before you erase your most brilliant doodles, Rocketbook will convert them into digital documents. Lots of artists and designers find sketching by hand, not just on the computer, a crucial part of the creative process, but scanning can be a pain. When you want to save your writing or sketches, the Rocketbook app will upload them to the cloud. The app takes photos of the notebook, two pages at a time, and automatically sends these digitized documents to folders in your Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, or email account. Seven icon buttons are on the bottom of each page, and you can assign them to various locations to determine where the document will be sent. For example, pressing the airplane button might automatically send your pages to Evernote.” Interesting idea for your quilt sketches and notes to self.

Websites, Articles and Information

This is a very short article about the Missouri Star Quilt Company without a lot of details. It leaves me wanting more. Where did they live in California? When did MSQC start? Perhaps, it will spur others (DO YOU HEAR PODCASTERS???) on to find out more.

Jackie is starting a series on sewing with children on her blog. She has posted random bits about sewing with children so I am looking forward to this organized series.

Modern Quilts Illustrated issue #10 is available. Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr at the Modern Quilt Studio have gone to a 2x/year publication schedule. There are no more subscriptions, but you can order it on their website.

The International Quilt Study Center quilt of the month is Oil Rigg by Jo Budd.

We all receive poorly written, flame sounding emails. Sometimes I can’t believe the email I receive because the writer sounds so angry just because s/he signed up to receive a notice of my blog posts. Ms. Lottie, who has the fabulous NZ based podcast and blog, posted a reminder from another artist, Dena Crain, about some tricks on how to avoid and respond to less than clam emails. One thing that spoke to me was the paragraph “Truly, our success at accomplishing all of our life goals has to do with how we approach other people.  Give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and trust that most people really do want to do the right thing, even you!” Dena also has a tutorial on making a mosquito netting. I think that is the first tutorial of that kind I have seen.

Ms. Lottie also has an interview with Sue Benner on her most recent podcast.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put up 4000 high resolution art images and made them available for certain uses. The LA County Museum has done this in the past, so I hope the practice will be a continuing trend.  How will they inspire YOU?

Gretchen reviews Adventures with Leaders & Enders

Exhibits, Tutorials and Events

The Home Machine Quilting Show will be in Salt Lake City May 7-9, 2015.

Charlotte of the Slightly Mad Quilt Lady Blog and Podcast has a tutorial on tying a knot for hand sewing. The thing I like about this tutorial is that it is short, gets down to business right away, tells you what you need to know and doesn’t have a lot of distractions.

Projects, Magazines, Books and Patterns

Philippa, AKA OzzyPip has been posting a series of animal blocks to Twitter. I love this little bird.

I know you NEED a cactus pin cushion. 😉 I saw a pattern posted on the Sewing Lab blog and thought you would like it. I know you could make some creative changes to put your own mark on it. If you make one, post a picture to the AQ Facebook page. I’d love to see your work.

A new issue of Through Our Hands magazine from Laura Kemshall is out: http://issuu.com/laurakemshall/docs/throughourhandsmagazinefeb2015/7?e=3297033/11588949

I was excited to see the Bag of the Month club bag over at Sew Sweetness. It is almost the perfect bag. The Hyacinth Bag is great for a purse and place to store a few things you might need at a quilt show. It is almost the perfect work bag for me, but just a tad bit too small. Still, she is getting closer.

I love the use of text fabrics in the quilt by Magnolia by the Bay.

Other Artists

I know that the New Year is long in the past, but I came across this 2014 Year in Review by Sara over at Sew Sweetness. The visuals add interest. I really like the gallery of photos and will see about doing some similar at the end of this year. I love the apron her friend is wearing towards the end of the post and I do kind of like that Rockstar Bag. I didn’t see it when it came out and I’ll have go and check it out. It has possibilities for a “take my stuff and lunch to work on the train” bag. You might see one that I made pretty soon. We’ll see.

Alex Veronelli retweeted a photo of Karolina Bakowska’s thread doodling piece. It is fantastic and I love it! I haven’t seen anything quite like it, but it really looks great.

Take a look at a short video with a Libby Lehman update. I am still hoping she will be able to teach again.

How did you celebrate Pi Day. Take a look at this great quilt.

My mom put up a new blog post with brief mentions of 3, yes THREE, finished quilts. Amazing!