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Wonder Fuse
What is it? – Appliqué . As a noun it’s an amazing and beautiful fiber art form. As a verb, appliqué refers to the addition of subordinate decorative fabric motifs to a larger, supporting piece of fabric. It has applications to quilting, fashion, home décor and crafts. Appliqué can be elegant or simple and it can create real world, geometric or abstract schemes. By designed intention it can relate a story or simply project a meaningful image. It’s all up to you. And when you consider your creative medium is a seemingly unending array of available and ever evolving…
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Yo-Yo Pillow Tutorial
What you need: Size Large Yo-Yo Maker, item #8701 Neutral shade of thread, Aurifil 50 wt cotton Black Gold Applique Needles, item #4971 Fabric Cuts: 96, 4.5″ red squares (or any darker color) 25, 4.5″ pink squares (or any lighter color) One, 20×20″ red fabric square for the back of the pillow One, 20×20″ white fabric square for the front of the pillow One 20″ square pillow insert Tips: You can use any two colors to make this pillow. To achieve the overall effect, use two contrasting colors such…
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Desk Needle Threader Extra Credit!
Featured Items Art No. 4071 Purple Desk Needle Threader Art No. 4072 Green Desk Needle Threader Art No. 4073 Pink Desk Needle Threader Shannon and Jason Mullett-Bowlsby are the dynamic DIY duo known as the Shibaguyz, and the creative geniuses behind Shibaguyz Designz Studio.Their award winning crochet & knit designs have been featured in and on the covers of both US and international publications. Their craft, portrait, and fashion photography has appeared in six books and numerous magazines around the globe. Together, the Shibaguyz team currently…
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Carefree Curves
What is it? Quilting construction is all about fabric cut in geometric shapes and applied in a specific order to present our preselected pattern. Squares, rectangles, triangles and curves. They are all important and can be applied in any combination to mimic our creative vision. Using these basic shapes we can create an endless array of quilt designs. Some are fairly simple and are easy to assemble. Some are more complex and difficult to assemble. And some are just crazy. Those would be the designs that include curves. We need to…
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Desk Needle Threader
What is it? Few things are more essential to the sewing process than the hand sewing needle. They were around even before thread and fabric. Think about it. Ancient ancestors used “pointed” objects to perforate animal hides so they could be laced together with cords. It was only a matter of time until some smart cave person joined those pointed objects to the cords to save time. Apply technology and years later we have highly advanced, modern hand sewing needles that do basically the same thing. But these evolved sewing tools…
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Slash Cutter
What is it? You know that fuzzy, super comfortable quilt your grandmother gave you? Probably made of chenille. And there’s nothing more reassuring than a hug from a chenille robe. Why? Chenille is your basic comfort fabric. It’s a natural for towels, robes and baby items. But don’t forget home décor, fashion or crafts. You can make a definite fashion statement with selections from color, pattern or weight. Chenille is a beautiful, textured fabric that is characterized by a unique and inviting 3-D appearance. It can be purchased ready made by…
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No-Hassle Triangles Gauge
What is it? Triangles and quilts. What do they have to do with each other. Plenty. Using half-square and quarter square triangle blocks in various arrangements of color and size have produced literally thousands of quilt patterns. Solid colors, prints, batiks, fabric styles and block orientations all contribute to an unending array of designs. And triangles seem to be an easy thing to create. Right? But how do I know what size to cut my fabric blocks to begin with? There is a formula for the half-square block. You can either…
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Foot Note on the Ultimate Quilt ‘n Stitch Presser Foot
What is it? Okay, who has too much time on their hands? We find it’s a challenge every day for us to figure out what we’re going to do with ourselves. Plenty of time on our hands and nothing to do. Well that’s not much of a showing. How about this, who thinks that quilting parallel lines of stitches is just too easy, not really a challenge? You know, row after row of tiny stitches just seem to automatically find their way to exactly the right spot on our quilts…
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I Sew For Fun Extra Credit
Roll ‘n Press Point 2 Point Turner Art No. 9612 Art No. 9613 …
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Flexible Rubber Thimbles
What is it? – If there was such a thing as a machine that could transport us back in time to review our history we’d no doubt see that one of the first sewing tools developed by our sewing ancestors was the hand sewing needle. Granted it was a very crude artifact compared to the precision needles we use today but there was a common theme from one to the other. Whether we’re working with hides in a cave or fine fabrics in an upscale fabric boutique or using ancient needles made…