gadgets – Amherst Quilters Guild

August 19, 2016

back to school supplies

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Many of us who have been quilting for awhile now have a selection of quilting supplies that have been taken from other parts of the house and repurposed for quilting. This helps to save money to use on purchasing fabric instead of purchasing high priced gadgets. Now don’t get me wrong…I love me some good gadgets but many times the old timey things actually work as well or better. For example, I use quadrille graph paper for measuring and trimming triangle points. There are two plastic templates on the market which are sold for the purpose of aligning triangle (or other shapes too) pieces which have to be offset for stitching. They cost about $10 a piece (which is equivalent to about a yard of fabric). I’d rather use my ten bucks on the fabric and stick with my 1¢ piece of graph paper for […]

February 14, 2014

For the love of…

Hello my quilty Valentines! Happy Valentine’s Day! Right from the start – how about this cool Valentine? Isn’t it just beautiful!? Even better, you can have a pattern for it – this is the newest creation from Elizabeth Hartman of Oh, Fransson! blog – one very talented modern quilter! I just love how this is patchwork, multicolored, has depth, interest…just fun! Speaking of fun – did I had some last Friday! I went to a lecture/trunk show/demo by amazing sisters, Jenny Pedigo and Helen Robinson, of Sew Kind of Woderful designs. They are long time quilters, have been professional long-arm quilters and now they are just playing and creating new, beautiful designs, using their new Quick Curve ruler. I saw this ruler a while ago and of course had to buy it asap, but – of course AGAIN – did not have a chance to play with it yet! So […]

December 10, 2013

Christmas crafting

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. How have you been? I’ve been AWOL for a while-busy with Christmas preparations. I’m sure you all understand. One of the things I’ve been up to involves Mod Podge. Yes that goopy stuff from the old decoupage crafting craze is still around and going strong. It’s quite amazing what you can get to stick with it. Did you know there is a Mod Podge made especially for fabric? Me either. I found this review (click here) by accident at the site for Craft Test Dummies. After reading what it has to say about the improvement in the fabric texture, I think I will check out whether any of our local big box stores, with my 40% off coupon, have any of the fabric Mod Podge in stock. I do quite a bit of crafting with fabric–making fabric flowers and embellishments in particular—and if it performs […]

November 20, 2013

Tetra-what?

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I’m back at the sewing machine in earnest now. The yard work is done, and the machine is back from its tune up. I hate sending it away, but it does make a difference in its performance and sound. Working on a Christmas table runner from an Edyta Sitar pattern, and a springy wall hanging that is a sample for a class I will be teaching in April. Was cruising some of my favorite sewing blogs this morning and came across these cool pattern weights. At least that’s what the designer had in mind for them, but I can see some other uses as well. I love their shape and when she used the correct mathematical term for them in her directions I was sold. Tetrahedrons–yep. You can take the girl out of the classroom but I still like to call things by their correct […]

July 30, 2013

quilting supplies-cheap!

Hello all, Mary Ellen again. Before I retired it would really frost me to start to see “back to school” ads in July. The summer isn’t even half over yet! Now I don’t mind at all because some of my best quilting supplies are bought in the back to school aisles. Probably my number one supply purchased at this time of year-in quantity-is Elmer’s washable school glue. I buy both the glue sticks and the liquid glue. It allows me to avoid pinning in many projects, and actually has increased my accuracy. The most frequent use of the glue is for “basting” my bindings to the back of the quilt before I sew them down by machine. When I first learned to stitch a binding on completely by machine, I was not happy with the way the back would look. Despite my best efforts at pinning or basting in the […]

April 14, 2013

some new books

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. It is a beautiful morning here in the neighborhood-truly, not tongue in cheek this time. The canine and I had a great walk in the sunshine, and by the end I had taken off my gloves and hat. (whisper-I think spring is in the air) When we returned home, I took a circle around the garden in the spots that aren’t too squishy wet to see what’s up. It’s time to do some clean up of the parts I can reach from the paths–too early to walk on the beds. Don’t get overly anxious you gardeners out there. It’s not good to pack down the dirt walking on it too soon. Lots of leaves are in the beds from our Snyder trees-no matter how late the last fall raking occurs, more leaves come down after. The daffodils are looking great, the hellebores too. Starting to […]

March 23, 2013

seminar stuff

Hello all, Mary Ellen back again. By now I hope you all know that Pat Sloan is going to be our featured national teacher at our fall seminar this year (September 18-21). Over at her blog today she has posted some photos of student projects from a class she is teaching now for another group of quilters. If you’d like to see some samples of the work they are doing, in the same classes that Pat will be presenting for us, click here. Pat loves to share photos of the classes she teaches. That will be us in the fall (don’t forget your lipstick!) Keep an eye on our visitor counter. At 35,000 visits (wow, I’m still amazed!) we’ll have several special things for you. Prizes, tutorials, etc. What would you like to see us write more of in the future? AMQG activities, links to other sites, ramblings about nothing […]

August 18, 2012

not your grandma’s yo-yo’s

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Are you like me, buying lots of “one-use” gadgets for your sewing? If so, you probably have at least one of those Clover brand yo-yo makers in your sewing room somewhere. Maybe it’s a basic circle, for the traditional yo-yo shape. Or perhaps you went for one of the unusual ones-the heart, or the pentagonal flower, or the butterfly. Here’s a clever use of those tools, from the designers at Nancy’s Notions. Nancy demonstrates in this video how to use those yo-yo tools for a smocked effect. This really got my creative juices flowing. What can I do with this idea? The holidays are on the horizon-this effect makes a simple technique look quite glamorous. I love those kinds of things, don’t you? Sometimes it’s so easy to fool the recipient of your gift into thinking it took hours to make it, and quite a […]