Since reading the original 10 quilty secrets post over at 13 spools, I have seen more and more of these posts pop up all over blog land. I have really enjoyed reading them (and to find out that I am not alone in many of my secrets), so I thought I would share my own quilty little secrets.
1) I love to iron my seams open. I love the reduced bulk, I love the look, and I love how my fabric seems to get scorched less often when I do it.
2) If you didn’t see this in my first secret – I iron, I don’t press. Pressing does not seem to get my fabric flat enough.
3) I do not really have a fabric stash – I have one bin of fabric that is slowly emptying. I like to buy my fabric one project at a time for the most part.
4) I am completely afraid of my needles breaking when free motion quilting and sometimes wear sunglasses when I am quilting to protect my eyes – also it brings up my coolness factor. (I have had a number of needles break when I was learning to FMQ and one even flung up and hit me on my eyelid- this does not often happen anymore, but the fear is till there…)
5) I dislike best press. It is expensive and does not give me the amount of starchiness that I like. I prefer the cheap heavy duty stuff.
6) I passionately hate pinning… I always seem to do it wrong and it never seems to be of use to me since my fabric seem to shift even when I do pin.
7) Fat quarters are my favorite size of fabric cut. You can do so much with them and you can get a pretty decent size piece for cheap.
8) I prefer to join my binding end to end instead of at a 45˚ angle. It is easier and I think looks just fine (although some situations call for the other way…)
9) I do not prewash my fabric for a quilt – for clothing item yes, quilt – never.
10) I love steam and water when pressing ironing my fabrics. I like my quilts to take a little swim on my ironing board before I sew them. I have a spray bottle filled with water sitting on my ironing board and I refill it often (ironically it is an empty best press bottle).
What about you? What are your quilty secrets?
Karen @ Pieces of Contentment says
It's quite interesting to see how many different little tricks or short cuts different people take in their quilting – there are a lot more details and options than first meets the eye. Speaking of eyes, sorry to hear you've had trouble with needles breaking – that's a little scary!
One Earlybird says
I like this idea. I might do a similar post on my blog.
Lee Ann L. says
I am more afraid of sewing a finger than a needle breaking. My mother's mother did this and they had to leave some of it in her bone. And, I've run across quilters who blogged about their accidents.
I love how we all are alike in so many ways and yet, we all have our differences. 🙂