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Favorite Notions - Diagonal Seam Tape

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The quilt top for this so very pink quilt is done and while making the binding I wanted to show you Cluck Cluck Sew's Diagonal Seam Tape just in case you haven't come across it yet.  

You may have noticed this tape because it's pretty popular for good reason--it's brilliant stuff!  But unless you make a lot of quilts, the point of it might not be so obvious. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it at first, but after looking around I see one of the ways it can be used is for sewing short, straight lines without needing to mark the stitching line on the fabric first. 

These are the types of lines quilters sew over and over and over again and combined with some of the other repetitive tasks of quilting, it can get tiresome marking these lines out.     

In the photo at the top, you can see the tape at the bottom of the picture and underneath the fabric the tape extends up to the markings on the machine plate.  As the two pieces are sewn together, all that's needed to maintain a straight stitch line is to keep the bottom intersection of the two binding pieces lined up with the red line at the center of the tape.  

If you'd like to try this tape, you can purchase it directly from Cluck Cluck Sew, or here are some etsy shops that carry this magical tape.  

Kona® Printed Color Chart

Please Note: Links to etsy products in this post are affiliate links. 

If you find it challenging to find matching lining fabrics, and you like Robert Kaufman's Kona solids, consider gettting one of these Kona color chart panels.  I haven't had mine long and have already consulted it numerous times.   

If you aren't familiar with Kona it is the most popular solid fabric for quilters.  There are more than 365 colors and it's just really great cotton fabric made from long staple cotton which gives it substantial feel.  It's wonderful for quilts and also lovely for lining bags and accessories.  

Back before the pandemic started, like a lot of people I was already buying most of my fabric online. But I still went out to the shops to find matches to use as lining.

Obviously, that stopped being an option last year so I started guessing which fabrics might pair well with the other fabrics in my stash.  Let's just say, some mistakes were made...

The first fabric I ran into trouble with is the lovely Rifle Paper Co. cotton canvas used to make the bag in the photo above (a medium size Grocery Bag, BTW).  This fabric has lots of different colors and it seemed like surely it would be no trouble to find a good match in my stash, but nope, it didn't quite work out that way. 

Then when this fabric came and I saw the lovely muted colors that don't really exist in my stash, it was obvious a better strategy for lining fabrics needed to be devised.

In the last year a few yard of Kona have made it to my mailbox and I was already eyeing the color chart as a potential way to stop me from making a lot of fabric buying mistakes.   

When the time came to get the job done and buy the color chart, Bobbie Lou's Fabric Factory on etsy had them available.  I've shopped with her before, so into my cart it went (along with two more color guesses--one of which turned out ok).  Bobbie Lou seems to be taking an etsy break now, but you can find the color chart on her website here.  

If you are interested in getting one of these too and want to order on etsy, BrewStitched sells this color chart panel here. I've shopped with BrewStitched a few times and it's always been a good experience.  

Striped Denim Basket Bag

Striped Denim Basket Bag

Please Note: Links to fabric are affiliate links.

Denim paired with a floral fabric always works for me and here it is again in this bag.  

This is Size 2 in the Basket Bags sewing pattern.  

The exterior fabric is this 10-ounce railroad stripe denim.  I'm making all sorts of bags from this fabric because it looks good with everything!

The floral fabric, which is quickly becoming an all-time floral favorite for me, is available here.  But get over there fast because its on the way to being OOP, and right now I can find only one yard here.  The print name is Garden Serenade and it's from the Carry a Tune collection by Michael Miller.  

Where's Kitty from the Catitude Collection

This post has affiliate links to etsy products.

This adorable cat print fabric is called "Where's Kitty", which is something I often wonder out loud about my own cat.  Maybe you do too?  They are so good at disappearing. 

It's from the Catitude collection by Miriam Bos for Dear Stella and it's so cute I had to point it out here in this blog post.    

If this fabric were mine (and it might yet be...), I'd probably make the "divided" version of the Grocery Bag in this print. I've made a bunch of these bags in various cat prints--like this one--and they all turned out awesome.  

Where's Kitty in blue is available at these etsy shops:

• Craft Chameleon Design
• Dots Charm
• Bobbie Lou Fabric
• Meandering Thread
• Thread Stitches Fabric

It also comes in white. Oh my, I might need both colorways!

Where's Kitty in white is available at these etsy shops:

• Polka Dot Secrets
• Bobbie Lou Fabric
• Dots Charm
• Thread Stitches Fabric

And finally, if you love cats, check out this sweet video of a mama cat and her kittens. Mama cat is super purry and obviously extremely happy with her babies! 

 

Helen's Meadow from Clothworks

Links to etsy products (other than mine) are affiliate links.

Right now I've got a number of different sewing projects going, and it kind of feels like it's going to be a while before most of them are done.

Whenever there are a lot of projects happening at once, I try to squeeze in making something that is either super easy or super fast, or better yet both.  It does wonders to keep my sewing motivation up if I can get at least one project --no matter how small--done now and then. 

So today I stitched up a couple of these Cord Keepers as my almost instant gratification sewing project. The pattern for these can be found here or here.

This was my first time using this fabric, which is a print from the Helen's Meadow collection by Helen Dardik for Clothworks.  

Helen't Meadow is from a few years back so these days it's getting challenging to find some of the prints in the collection.

If you are interested in adding some of this to your stash, the pink version of this print is available in a few online shops (try here or here).

Yardage of the blue version is more elusive. If a small piece will do, there are two fat eighths available here in my shop.  Of course, if you know where to find it BTY online, drop a link in the comments. 

BTW, BTY = by the yard (and BTW = by the way).  A sewing acronyms blog post really should happen sometime soon. If you look at sewing stuff online frequently, you pick up the meaning of these over time, but you don't know until you know.  

Sewing Notions

Did you know there are a number of new and restocked notions in the sewing notions section of my etsy shop? 

 

Since getting to the store is not possible/practical/recommended these days, many of these are selling pretty quickly.  Which is both lovely (thank you, I appreciate your business!) and also makes it challenging to keep up with tracking inventory in both my etsy shop and my website, so for now most are only on etsy.  

There are a few different colors of thread.  More off-white Gutermann thread is also coming later in the week.  A number of different Schmetz chrome machine needles are also available.  I've only started using these chrome needles myself and the Microtex ones are amazingly sharp.  

This is the second style of awl I'm carrying now.  This tapered one is awesome for opening packages!  At least that's mostly what I've been using mine for so far.  Surely I'll find other ways to use it eventually.