Monthly Archives: March 2016

Ironing Board Cover

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My last few blogs have been about the Sew Expo in Puyallup. My main splurge there was at the Bo-Nash booth, where I purchased an IronSlide Ironing Board Cover and an IronSlide Iron Shoe. Stephanie did a nice job promoting the products and I decided to give them a go.

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I have a “European” ironing board which is 18″ wide and 49″ long, and always have difficulty finding the appropriate size of ironing board cover. I purchased the Giant IronSlide cover which is 65″ x 29″. It is self adhesive and you simply peel off the paper backing and stick it down. I removed my old cover and extracted the padding from it to use again, and then added the silver self-adhesive IronSlide cover. I cut around the ironing board leaving a margin to tuck in at the sides and cut slits in it to miter around the edges. It was a little tricky and the adhesive is extremely sticky, but I managed to install it on my own. Having a second pair of hands would definitely have made the job easier. The ironing board looks pretty slick now and so far, I’m liking it.

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The IronSlide cover is made from luninex which reflects 300% more heat than regular cotton covers, so this in theory cuts the ironing time in half and both sides are ironed at once. If it has creases in it after installation, these will iron out. I didn’t have any problem with that and mine is nice and smooth. The cover is very stable and doesn’t move around at all.

In my next blog, I will show you the IronSlide Iron Show.

Sew Expo Puyallup III – Decorative Embroidery

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Another feast for the eyes at the Puyallup Sew Expo was a booth adorned with incredible machine embroidery. The beauty and intricacy of the designs enthralled me. Machine embroidery is not something I’m interested in doing myself. In fact, I sold the embroidery unit that attaches to my Viking Designer 1 machine because I never used it and a friend wanted to buy one. However, when I see these fantastic designs, I can certainly appreciate and admire them. Momo Dini Embroidery Art, a company based in Texas, creates these elaborate designs and digitizes them for machine embroiderers with computer guided embroidery machines.

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Then of course, you can buy every imaginable color and type of thread from Superior Threads.

Sew Expo Puyallup II – Decorative felt kits

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A booth at Sew Expo that really captivated me was tucked away at the far end of one of the exhibition halls. Lumenaris is a family owned business based in Morgan Hill, CA, selling felt kits, sewing tools, puzzles and games. They distribute their goods wholesale to over 800 stores nationally. The felt kit products, all designed by Mary Fatula, were so attractive and appealing to me. These are wonderful hand sewn projects that are small and convenient for carrying around to work on when you are traveling or waiting for appointments.

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Check out the variety of items – mats, ornaments, Christmas stockings, garlands, coasters, tea-cozies, and even felt cakes and cookies. What fun! The felt pieces are very accurately cut using a computer guided laser cutter and the kits contain everything you need to complete the projects.

Sew Expo, Puyallup I – booth sampling

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Last week, I gave a lecture to Quilters by the Bay in University Place. One of the guild members kindly hosted me for the night and since I was over half way from home to Puyallup, I decided to go to the Sew Expo. This is a huge biannual event held at the State Fairgrounds and lasting for four days. There were two enormous halls of vendors, many of whom traveled from out-of-State to be there to cater for every need of sewers and quilters.Judging by the numbers of people busy shopping, quilting and sewing are alive and well as hobbies and there were serious spenders making the most of having all these vendors in one place. Many of large quilt shops in our area had booths. Here’s a sampling. As you can see, it wasn’t just quilting supplies. There were sewing machines, yarn and more. It was fun to check out new sewing gadgets.

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There were colorful displays of quilts, plenty of fabric and sewing machines large and small.

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The lady at the machine in the QuiltWorks Northwest booth was demonstrating Grip and Stitch, two dish-sponge sized discs that are used to move a quilt around as you machine quilt. They sit on the surface of the quilt and you can gently put your hands on them as you quilt. They cling to the quilt, so that you don’t have to grip with your hands as you machine quilt. I had a go and it worked pretty well.

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This t-shirt amused me – “I have OQD – Obsessive Quilting Disorder Thank goodness there’s no cure!”