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Tool School: Wonder Knitter
By Steve Butler What is it? – As children, most of us can remember having an old wooden spool with four rounded metal pegs protruding from one end.
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Top 5 Knitting Notions
What is it? – When it comes to knitting and crochet it’s all about knitting needles and crochet hooks, right? Not so fast. Take a quick look in your knitting kits or visualize the process of completing any project. Something simple or even very complex. A quick inventory of what you will use will reveal several knitting or crochet accessories that significantly enhance the creative process. These items are the most necessary notions, the most valued accessories to every knitting or crochet endeavor. They are our most in demand,…
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Tool School: Knitting Notions
What is it? – When it comes to knitting and crochet it’s all about knitting needles and crochet hooks, right? Not so fast. Take a quick look in your knitting kits or visualize the process of completing any project.
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Fusibles
What is it? – Interfacing is used in many sewing and craft projects to provide extra support, body, reinforcement or shape. Basically it enhances our creative potential by allowing us to do things beyond the capability of the fabric alone. A fusible interfacing is a specific type of interfacing that has a heat activated adhesive applied to it. This “fusible” type interfacing allows us to simply iron it into place. Clover and Nancy Zieman have taken this convenience a step further in the development of four really cool fusible…
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Stick ‘n Stitch Guide
What is it? – We take such great care with our sewn projects. Crafts, quilts, fashion, home décor, it doesn’t matter what. We envision exactly what we want to create. Once we have that picture, everything about it has to be just perfect. Patterns, fabrics, threads, and accessories are all selected with great care. We measure, mark, cut, pin and press with precision. And then, well, then we put it all together. We sit down at our sewing machine and put thread to fabric. And that has to be…
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Mini Beading Loom
What is it? – As children, many of us went to scout camp or attended other summer activities where beading was a staple activity. It was fun, fast, creative and we were left with something that was uniquely ours. Unknowingly that was our introduction to an art form that was thousands of years old. From the earliest of times our ancestors were accessorizing their clothes, their tools and even themselves with beads. They were worn, traded and valued by the owner. Happily bead weaving is alive and well today and…
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Create-a-Pincushion
What is it? – Pincushions have been a necessity for about as long as the needle and pin have been used. Picture someone sewing by candlelight in the Middle Ages. She puts her needle down to adjust the fabric or throw another log on the fire and when she reaches for it again . . . well, it’s nowhere to be found. Necessity truly is the mother of invention. The pincushion was developed initially out of a need to organize and store pins and needles and then developed into so…
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Felting
What is it? – Needle felting is an age old art form that has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity and is being enthusiastically embraced by an increasingly wide spectrum of creative expression. Art, jewelry, fashion embellishment, home decor, toys . . . it does them all. Needle felting techniques are applied globally but are adapted locally in the expression of unique traditions, cultures or other expressive preferences. In its most basic form the process of felting employs a felting needle to interlock carded wool or synthetic fibers into a more…
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Hot Ruler
What is it? – What do you do when you have a hit? That’s a no brainer. You make the sequel. And if you make the sequel well you will have another hit. And that’s exactly what Clover has done. The success of the Hot Hemmer was and is unprecedented. There is nothing like it and everybody wants one. For the first time a precision ironing tool is available that enables us to measure and set angles and press all at the same time. And it is all done with…
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Compact Sewing Kit
What is it? – Think how often you need just the basics for a quick repair and you don’t want to, or can’t, sit down at your sewing cabinet to do it. Maybe you don’t have time to go through the drawers and look for the tools you need. Maybe you’re on vacation and the family is ready to head to the theme park but you need to put a button on someone’s shirt and the hotel doesn’t provide mending kits. Or worse, maybe you’re in your car on the…
