Friday Designs: I'm Getting Better!

Quilting

I have actually been doing more quilting lately, but I haven’t taken any pictures. Despite what it appears here – fabric is, and always will be, my first love.

Meanwhile, since this was originally my quilting blog, I feel obligated to include fabric stories. ….

So, to that end, let me verbally illustrate some of my quilting adventures of the last few weeks.

The Iron Story

A good iron is essential to a quilter.

No two ways about it.

Everyone has their own preference; I like a HEAVY iron. Over the years, I’ve collected a few good ones from estate sales and the like. I do like the Rowenta brand, but they are quite expensive and also seem to be getting lighter. I think that “lighter is better” is a motto with many small appliances, but I just really like the feel of a heavy iron. I also do NOT like non stick surfaces in general, and irons fall into that. I like the plain steel (?) bottom. Lastly, they also have to have self shut offs, at least that “pause” feature when you leave it alone for a while. Quilters leave irons on for hours and walk away frequently.

Me and Irons also have a love/hate relationship that pokes at my mild OCD. We’ve taken the iron on vacation (driving trips) a couple times so I wouldn’t stress out about leaving it on.

And, Yes, I’ve turned around on my way to work to come home and check if I left it on…

Only a few times….

Ok, maybe about a dozen over the last couple years.

My favorite iron for the last few years has been a Rowenta. It was sufficiently heavy and not a non-stick bottom. Unfortunately, this favored tool had started to show signs of wear about a year ago. First, the cord came a little loose at the main unit and was giving me mild shocks and heating up. Finally, one day, I pulled at it to straighten it out a little and detached the cord completely.

Not to worry

Hubby is quite accomplished with electrical repairs in small appliances.

So, I batted my eyelashes at him and he patched up the cord. He did a very good job!

Fast forward to about a week ago. I plugged in my trusty iron and….

Warm…..

But only that….

I assumed it was the heating element and that old faithful (get it, steam = gyser?) finally gave up the ghost.

I pulled out another iron, one that is also sufficiently heavy and non-nonstick. However, that one was a little psychotic.

Yes, I personalize my quilting tools and Yes, psychotic is the right word….

It likes to spit water out.

I’m pretty inured to hot on my hands (remember, I also work with torches and kilns), but it does get annoying. It also leaks all over the place, soaks pieces of fabric, messes up workspace, etc. I also use steam and mist a lot – it helps to dampen (not soak) some pieces to press out the seams better – and I don’t want to add a little water each time I pick it up to use.

So, that iron failed to address my needs and there were no more in stock to consider.

Time to buy one

Shopping trip

Chris and I headed off to (major retailer who shall not be named as they are not my favorite, but had other things we needed) in search of the perfect small appliance. We met up with a friend there for other purposes but she assisted us in our search.

I can only imagine the thoughts that may have went through peoples’ minds as they observed us. This retailer generally attracts shoppers who discern based mostly on what is the cheapest item of its kind. Not us. I started at about the mid price point for irons and first picked up boxes. This first analysis narrowed my search to about three and then we all started feeling boxes, hefting them one at a time and narrowed it to two. We then opened boxes and did arm curls with them making a determination.

The one that got chosen was a “Shark” brand; which according to my husband and that friend – is a scrappy brand that dares go against Dyson.

Good enough for me.

It came home with us. It’s been about a week and I’m happy so far.

Other Failures

I destroy and reject irons. Not on purpose. I’m not normally destructive. It’s just that beyond a sewing machine – an iron is the most used powered tool that a quilter employs. We abuse them in general – leave them on for hours and hours (sometimes 14-16 at quilt retreats), haul them around with us, bounce them around in cars, totes, etc, and pour whatever water is available into them. My mother used to keep a gallon of distilled water by her iron and use a clean funnel to fill it. I fill my iron from what ever cup is handy, sometimes my water bottle, even hold it under the tap and clean? There’s usually even cat hair in the reservoir!

Notable failures:

The iron was on the iron board. One of the cats came tearing through the house and hit the board, the iron fell to the floor and there was a visible short/shock/flash. It never heated up after that. There’s also a little dent in the wood floor.
I’m generally not happy with Black and Decker brand. I figured that with that name, it would be a good, heavy duty appliance. Nope, totally wimp. I can’t remember all the details – it was so long ago – but it was sufficiently annoying that I threw it out (probably donated actually) and my brain tells me never again to B&D.
I had one iron that I really, really liked. Met all my criteria… except who every designed it did not take quilting into advisement. As I said, quilters walk away from their irons, piece, and go back and forth for hours and hours. This iron would start a light beeping after it had been ignored for something like 5 or 10 minutes. If you didn’t respond, it would give a HIGH pitched scream for about 1 minute, then it would quiet down and hibernate. For some reason, the screaming didn’t annoy me - I suppose I just could compartmentalize and shut it off in my mind. However, it annoyed the hell out of both Chris and Elinor – especially Elinor.

Fabric Packs Inspiration

Keepsake Quilting has a bunch of monthly “clubs” that one can sign up for. Each month, they send you a pack of fabric. Over a year ago, I signed up for their “Bits and Pieces” club. The description states: “Each month you will receive an assortment of die-cut fabrics that may be 4",6" or 10" squares one month and hearts or other shapes the next month”. While I like squares (and especially packs of squares), I haven’t done much with shapes like hearts, or butterflies (just two they had), and I don’t do much with applique, but I wanted to try it out for awhile.

The packs have been great inspiration and I’ve used about half of them. It’s really quite fun to get a mystery in the mail each month! Yes, I swore to myself I would use every month’s pack THAT month and would create new things…. Yeah….

I made a really nice quilt with a pack of white squares and butterflies, but I haven’t used any other of the shapes. I took that into account, and just recently switched my club membership to the charm packs.

Beads, Beads and More Beads

I’m Getting Better!

When I first tried torchwork, I loved it. However, I’m not an organic artist, or a sculptor, and didn’t pick up quickly and well like many of the people that I saw in the class. I’ve mentioned many times here that I struggle with making the beads, but that I enjoy it very much.

However, despite my own protests of inadequacy, I feel that I’m actually getting a LOT better and am proud of what I’m beginning to produce.

The first big thing is that I needed to use good glass.

I bought a lot of glass rods (what you use to make beads) at J. Ring glass in St. Paul where I get wonderful sheet glad for fusing. He had ok stuff – nothing spectacular. It was “good” glass in that it was quality. However, all he had were plain opaque and transparent colors. Nothing that did fun things, nothing that looked cool, so I went online.

That was a mistake.

I found a place (I won’t name them) that had really cool looking glass – multi colored, cool colors, thicker rods, and thin rods, and things that just plain looked fun.

However, the glass is crap

It thermal shocks VERY easily (breaks with heat) and is very hard to use. I have managed to make some pretty beads with some, but they take longer, break eaisier, etc., etc.

Then, one Open Torch day at Potek about 3 months ago, I drove the wrong car. My container of glass and supplies was in the trunk of the one I didn’t have with me. I bought glass from the shop – some plain colors, some clear and some really cool, expensive colors.

It was like night and day!

It was so much easier to create beads. They held their shap on the mandrals better, flowed easier, etc., etc.

I fell in love with torchwork all over again and have only worked with the soft glass since – haven’t done marbles, or paperweights or other hard glass things – and have made huge strides in beads. My two “styles” are encasing 2 or 3 colors into clear and decorating with multi layered dots. At the bottom of this post, I will have a bunch of pictures. The disclaimer is always: “not good quality pictures”, but you should be able to get an idea.

1000

Malcom Potek says something about having to make a thousand of something before you get good at it/can call yourself accomplished.

So, after looking at all my bins and bowls of beads….

I’m accomplished.

Now, what do I do with a thousand plus beads in all shapes, colors, and sizes…?

(There are a few sets of two or three… but not many)

Dropping Things

My inherent clumsiness and my adherence to routines has a very interesting good point in torchwork.

I drop things. I also know that I cannot catch them.

Hot glass is something that one should never try to catch…..

So I don’t….

Let me explain how this is such a plus – every glass worker drops things off their mandrals or pontis. For example, you may have a marble break off a ponti, or a soft glass rod break. Since these things have been in 2500+ degree flames, it’s quite normal for them to be VERY HOT. Every session that I go to, someone needs burn cream, or complains of a minor burn, or something. It’s also less and less me!

I know I’ve mentioned here about dropping a large marble off the rod and having it fall to my chair. Not only did I NOT try to catch it, I also spread my legs and jumped up, so it did not touch me at all. That incident is still mentioned often during open torch sessions…..

My latest story: two nights ago, I joined a couple partial rods of a purple together to make a usable rod (it’s common to join rods when they start getting short). I started working with it, and I accidentally slid my hand up to far and touched the join. Instictively, I dropped it quickly. It fell, and hit the floor, making a loud noise as it broke.

Unlike the guy across me who was already nursing two burns from touching his hot rods, I did not receive much of a burn. I startled myself and those around me, but the only causality was my rod. It was then in 5 pieces. I managed to rejoin it, and continued working with it.

Although I seem to have a MUCH higher threshold for burns now, and probably don’t have much of fingerprints, burns are still nasty. Moral of the story – don’t try to catch glass.