Friday, August 29, 2014

My 10 Quilty Little Secrets

13 Spools

Since reading the original 10 quilty secrets post over at 13 spools, I have seen more and more of these posts pop up all over blog land.  I have really enjoyed reading them (and to find out that I am not alone in many of my secrets), so I thought I would share my own quilty little secrets. 
    1)  I love to iron my seams open.  I love the reduced bulk, I love the look, and I love how my fabric seems to get scorched less often when I do it.  

    2)  If you didn't see this in my first secret - I iron, I don't press.  Pressing does not seem to get my fabric flat enough.

    3)  I do not really have a fabric stash - I have one bin of fabric that is slowly emptying.  I like to buy my fabric one project at a time for the most part. 

    4)  I am completely afraid of my needles breaking when free motion quilting and sometimes wear sunglasses when I am quilting to protect my eyes - also it brings up my coolness factor.  (I have had a number of needles break when I was learning to FMQ and one even flung up and hit me on my eyelid- this does not often happen anymore, but the fear is till there...)

    5)  I dislike best press.  It is expensive and does not give me the amount of starchiness that I like.  I prefer the cheap heavy duty stuff. 

    6)  I passionately hate pinning... I always seem to do it wrong and it never seems to be of use to me since my fabric seem to shift even when I do pin.

    7)  Fat quarters are my favorite size of fabric cut.  You can do so much with them and you can get a pretty decent size piece for cheap. 

    8)  I prefer to join my binding end to end instead of at a 45˚ angle.  It is easier and I think looks just fine (although some situations call for the other way...)

    9)  I do not prewash my fabric for a quilt - for clothing item yes, quilt - never.

    10)  I love steam and water when pressing ironing my fabrics.  I like my quilts to take a little swim on my ironing board before I sew them.  I have a spray bottle filled with water sitting on my ironing board and I refill it often (ironically it is an empty best press bottle). 

    What about you?  What are your quilty secrets?
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    3 comments:

    1. Karen @ Pieces of ContentmentAugust 29, 2014 at 8:23 PM

      It's quite interesting to see how many different little tricks or short cuts different people take in their quilting - there are a lot more details and options than first meets the eye. Speaking of eyes, sorry to hear you've had trouble with needles breaking - that's a little scary!

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    2. One EarlybirdAugust 30, 2014 at 2:24 PM

      I like this idea. I might do a similar post on my blog.

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    3. Lee Ann L.September 13, 2014 at 5:45 AM

      I am more afraid of sewing a finger than a needle breaking. My mother's mother did this and they had to leave some of it in her bone. And, I've run across quilters who blogged about their accidents.

      I love how we all are alike in so many ways and yet, we all have our differences. :-)

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