Safety Pin Tip

I have taken a lot of craft classes over the years, and I appreciate the teachers or other students sharing craft tips that are really helpful.  One of my favorite from a quilting class is about safety pins, used to hold the layers of quilt front, batting and backing together.  There are many ways to hold the layers together, but I like to use safety pins.  I found, though, that it is a hassle to open the pins and close them each time I put them away so they don’t get in a tangled mess.  I learned a trick! You just pick up a pin, which is connected to several other pins in a knot, and drop them from a few inches above your surface.  They come untangled! Sometimes you may need to drop a small bunch a second time if they are still tangled.  I am so happy to report that now I put the open safely pins in the container when I am done with them, and don’t worry about possible messes, because I know that I can untangle them in a heartbeat. It saves much time, which is important to me, since I always have so many projects I want to finish. Happy crafting!

~Gayle

Fab Finds Friday

Wow, I have so many ideas for this that I had a hard time deciding which to do first.  Since I just did a quilt project using glues sticks, that is what I decided to talk about today. You probably already have some, the ones that are always on sale with back-to-school supplies.  I usually buy Elmer’s School Glue sticks, but I have also used Scotch brand and others.  For the use I will talk about today, you want to make sure they are washable.  What do I use them for?  I took a quilting class once on appliqué, where the teacher told us to use glue sticks to hold down our appliqué pieces until we were able to sew them on.  If you iron the glued pieces, they stay even better.  I did a raw edge mouse shape appliqué, 2 layer, and it held really well after ironing the glued layers.  I was able to sew them on without having to use pins to hold them.  I was doing 12 of the appliqués, so it saved me a lot of time.  Since it is Christmas time and as usual, I am trying to get more done than I have time to, a time-saving thing like glue sticks is a great idea!  The glue stick just washes out of the quilt when I am done. I am sure you can think of others uses for a glue stick.  I also have used glue sticks for holding down quilt binding  so I can sew it on the sewing machine, but have more of a hand sewn look.  But that is a tip for another day.  Also, if you keep the glue sticks in zip lock bags in the fridge, they stay good longer without drying out.  I hope you find this tip as helpful as I have.

~Gayle