Quilting Product of the Week - Quilter's Hangup

I know I've been neglecting the product of the week for a while now, so I'm trying to be better. This week's pick is something I came across at Market. I don't know about you all, but I hate making hanging sleeves for my quilts. I am so bad about it, I usually hang them with pins or tumb tacks (gasp, I know, so bad for my quilts!). Now, I don't have to worry about it. The Quilter's Hangup is a great new product. Here's a picture of how it looks on the back of a quilt:

For $9.99, you get a 3 yard lenth of premade muslin sleeve. Just cut to your length, or piece more than one together if needed! Attach the sleeve to your quilt back and you're done! No more making your own sleeves, or if you're like me, not making your own sleeves and finding some other way to hang your quilts!

Quilting Product of the Week-Dog Gone Murder

It's Here! This post may be a few days later than Monday, but I have to tell you that the latest installment in the murder mystery series by Marnette Falley is here! I will be taking preorders for this latest mystery, which will be filled when I return from Quilt Market May 19th! This is sure to be a fun addition to your book collection! Click here to preorder!

Quilting Product of the Week-Layer Cakes

This is a belated post that should have been up Monday. I am still catching up.........

This week, I am introducing Layer Cakes. Layer Cakes are Moda's latest brain child. They are basically a new addition to the family of precut fabric, ala charm squares and jelly rolls. Layer Cakes are packets of 40 10" squares. Each packet sells for $29.99.
Of course, there are now patterns designed for Layer Cakes popping up everywhere. Although I haven't found many that I love yet, more and more designers continue to join the Layer Cake movement. These patterns can be used with any fabric you can cut into 10" squares, not just layer cakes. The attractiveness of the layer cake, however, is that you get precut pieces, and in perfectly coordinated variety. It is difficult and expensive to purchase 40 different fabrics. However, in a layer cake, you get 40 different pieces easily. Like charm packs and jelly rolls, this creates beautifully coordinated quilts with very unique looks because of the variety.

I am planning to start making the Blossom quilt soon. I saw this quilt done up in a shop in Salt Lake City, and, like most, it is much cuter than the picture. For now, I've filed the "At Water's Edge" quilt (the one with the circles and paper pieceing) with the "some day" pile, since I've decided it's not worth the trouble for now.

Quilting Product of the Week-Flying Geesex4 Ruler

This week, in honor of my new quilt "Geese On the Water" I am choosing the Flying Geesex4 Ruler. Selling for $19.95, this ruler makes flying geese easy to make, and super easy to adjust to various sizes. The ruler includes markings to make flying geese up to 3.5" x 7" finished size. The best part? There are no wasted triangles to cut off with this ruler! Save time and fabric making 4 blocks at once, and no waste! This is a significant savings. I am able to include the ruler in my new quilt kit, (quilt picture to be posted tomorrow or Wednesday), and the savings in yardage pays for more than half of the ruler!

The method used with this ruler will be so time saving for you, you'll use it for all your flying geese from now on! This is one tool definately worth the investment. I've sold out, but I will have more in stock later this week.

Quilting Product of the Week - Log Cabin Quilt Book

This week I've chosen Judy Martin's Log Cabin Quilt Book as the product of the week. I've been looking through this book, getting familiar with the quilts and wishing I had more free time to try some of them out. They are absolutely stunning, and every quilt is made using a variation of the log cabin block, possibly the easiest block ever!
This book features 16 specific quilt patterns, all in full color! Each one is as beautiful as the next, and they all include instructions for sizes from wall to king size. There are also pages of instruction on cutting log cabin strips for best results, visuals of many other settings to try out using the log cabin block, and some great general knowledge to help you quilt your best.
This book will allow you to create stunningly beautiful quilts that are 100 times easier than they appear!

Quilt in a Cup-Product of the Week

Ta Da! This week's product of the week is the Quilt in a Cup! What more could you ask for, but a combination of quilting and a way to drink espresso? (or your drink of choice) These kits come with the cup, which is large enough to hold a grande espresso, and the precut batting. You add your choice of fabrics, scraps work perfectly, and create an insert to make your cup unique, quilt-as-you-go style! This takes less than 1/2 an hour, and when you're finished you can drink in style, or give as a great gift! Even beginner's will find this easy. I think I need one for every season!

Quilting Product of the Week-Bias Tape Makers

Although Bias Tape Makers may have been around for a while, I just recently discovered them. It came about because I wanted to make Charm Garland. The charm garland pattern calls for the use of a bias tape maker, and for good reason! The tape maker is great!!! I made the entire length (about 10-12 feet) of garland, completely finished, in less than an hour. It is the cutest thing ever, and makes great decorations for Christmas trees and windows year round.

The tape maker works by folding your fabric for you as you iron. After feeding the strip of fabric into the tape maker, you gently pull the tape maker along as you iron the fabric coming out the other end. The result is a perfectly folded strip of fabric in seconds.

The bias tape maker comes in different sizes for making different finished size bindings. At just $7.50, these are a very affordable tool!

Quilting Product of the Week: My-T Fine Electric Scissors

This week I have chosen the My-T Fine Electric Scissors as my product of the week. These electric scissors are another Fall Quilt Market find of mine.
The features that make these scissors great include narrow blades, and cordless, rechargable operation. No more tangled cords getting in the way, and no batteries to buy! These scissors recharge on their own base. The narrow blades are great for chenilling, which is what sent me looking for electric scissors in the first place. I wish I'd had these when I made my chenille scarf! The blades fit into channels around 3/8" wide, making the cutting part of chenille projects a breeze.
These scissors would also be great for cutting out patterns for clothing and other projects. I'm no seamstress, but the few items I have made, such as bags and jackets, would have been much easier with these scissors!
Replacement blades for these scissors are available for about $17.99. The scissors themselves retail for $59.95.

Get Your Sidewinders Here!!!

Wow, what a Monday! Just when I thought I had a day at home, the universe conspires against me! That quilting machine? Haven't even turned it on today.

First, I decided to bite the bullet and try to make sense of my taxes. I am happy to report that they're almost done, but they also took up my entire morning! So, I headed to the shop to "quickly" fill some orders.

To my surprise, my shipment of Sidewinder Bobbin Winders arrived today. What I thought was going to be a quick trip to the shop to fill one order turned into a crazy 3 hours trying to fill Sidewinder back-orders! Imagine orders, receipts, boxes, bags and shipping labels everywhere, and then add Will into the mix, following me around whining, "I hate the shop, I wanna go home, I hate the shop, I don't wanna go back to the shop," and you have my afternoon!

So, since they arrived today, and I'm too exhausted to think of anything else, the Sidewinder is my product of the week. They have been hugely popular, enabling you to wind bobbins without unthreading your machine. They are very portable, and run off power or batteries. There are several types of bobbins the Sidewinder will not work with. It will work with any bobbin with a normal, round center hole.
The Sidewinder works great if your sewing machine doesn't wind bobbins well, or is difficult to rethread. If history repeats itself, they won't be in stock for long, so order while their hot!

Queen Bee Mysteries-Quilting Product of the Week

Arggggggggh-I have been working on this quilt for what feels like forever! Lucky me, I picked a spool of thread that seems to be challenged! It breaks every 10-30 seconds of quilting, frustrating to say the least. Add that to the fact that I only have the one spool of this color, it's too late to change colors, and I'm working on a full size quilt, and you can see why I might be in a bad mood.

So, I'm taking a break to post my quilting product of the week. This week, in honor of those times when you need a break from quilting, I'm choosing the Queen Bee Mystery Series. These are fictional stories centered around a Midwest quilt group. The group meets at the local quilt store to quilt and solve mysteries. These books are entertaining, whether or not you're a quilter you will enjoy the story and trying to solve each mystery before the end! Plus, there's a bonus quilt block pattern at the end of each book.

Even though they're not a sewing tool, these books are perfect for frustrating days like today! There are 3 books currently available, with a fourth due out later this year.

Quilting Product of the Week

It's Monday again, so I'm choosing my second Quilting Product of the Week! This week, I have chosen the Fasturn tube turner. I will also be demoing this product at my Moda-University quilt club this Thursday.
At first, it may not seem like tubes come up a lot in quilting. However, every once in a while a tube is necessary, sometimes for a hanging sleeve on the back of a quilt, sometimes for a button loop, sometimes something else. It used to be that whenever a tube was called for, I was immediately turned off from the project. Who realistically can turn a 1" wide tube inside out, especially if it's very long at all? If I couldn't adapt the pattern to not include tube turning, I just forgot about it!
A few months ago I saw a tube turner demonstrated on a quilting show. I'm not sure if they were even using the same one I got, but I was intrigued because it looked so effortless. I decided to give it a try, and I ended up with the Fasturn set. This set retails for just under $40, which seems expensive. However, it was love at first turn! This set comes with several different sizes of tubes, to accommodate different widths and lengths. The first time I used it, I was turning a very long tube, about 6 feet long! It was about 2" wide. The turner turned it perfectly in less than a minute!
I used it more recently to turn a 4" long tube that was only 1/2" wide, and I remain impressed. It was effortless. As it turns the tube, it also opens the seam, making for easy ironing afterward. In my opinion, it is well worth the price. Patterns that require tubes of any size will no longer intimidate me!
If you're interested in ordering this item, please contact me through my website, www.crazyforquilting.com. Although I don't currently stock them, I can have them in about 1 week.

Quilting Product of the Week

I am always finding new products that I love, if you stop by the quilt store you've probably heard me talk about some of them already. I've decided to select 1 new thing a week to give my opinions on. This week, I've chosen Best Press Spray Starch.

Released at Fall 2007 Quilt Market, this new spray starch is awesome for several reasons! First, it comes in 3 scents or non-scented if you are sensitive to smells. The scents are lavender, Caribbean breeze, and citrus grove, and I like them all. Second, this starch is not aerosol, so it is better for the environment, plus the nozzle doesn't clog or spit when sprayed. Third, and best of all, this starch works!!! It doesn't flake or spot on the fabric, and it makes the fabric lay perfectly. It is essential in quilt making to iron properly, and this starch makes it easier by giving your fabric just enough stiffness and shape to prevent stretching and make nice, flat seams.

Best Press also works for ironing clothes, linens, or anything else you need to iron. 1 gallon refills are available in each scent and non scent, and they save you the cost of 2 single bottles. If you would like to view the starch, you can see and/or purchase it from me at The Crazy Quilter. I love it, and I will never use any other starch again!