I made these goodie bags for Caitlin’s party guests. It’s the Simple Bag pattern from Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. I surfed the Flickr group before starting. Wow, so many fabulous projects there! I especially liked this one by Grey Cottage Studio, it inspired me to use bold print pairs with spicy linings.

The block I made for Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts. The blocks this month are really stunning. I’m looking forward to seeing this quilt when it’s all put together. You can see completed blocks on the Virtual Quilting Bee Flickr group.

Jeez Louise, there’s a teenager in my house!

Wacky cake recipe.

My beloved Janome 6600 has every feature a girl could want except for one: a free arm. My previous sewing machine had a free arm so I do know what I’m missing! Here’s a simple tip that I picked up in one of my Yahoo groups: sew a circular seam from the opposite side. Since my stitching looks better on the top than the bobbin, I like to actually turn items inside out when I need to topstitch so that I’m sewing on the side that will be seen.

Any more tricks on sewing without a free arm?

And yes, this is a teaser shot of the Mail Sack. I’m expecting delivery of the pattern sheets any day now!

I recently conquered my laser jet printer woes and I’m so darn excited about it I wanted to share what I did.

I self-print my pattern instruction booklets on an HP Color LaserJet 2550. My booklets are all black and white. When I first started doing this I tried switching the setting to ‘Print in Grayscale’. The print quality was awful (the blacks were sort of light splotchy black, not crisp and saturated). I left it on the default color setting to get the quality.

In one year’s time I’ve gone through more toner cartridges than I care to reflect on (tax time forced the issue!) The problem is I’m having to replace the 3 color cartridges along with the black. Since I’m not printing much color at all I went on a fact finding mission to figure out why I’m using so much toner.

Let’s just put the ink cartridge “scam-a-ram-a conspiracy by all large printing companies” to the side for a moment. Believe me, I know it’s happening, there’s no way in H-E-double-toothpick that I’ve printed that many pages and used that much toner contrary to what the machine sensors claim.

I called HP to discuss my issue. “I like the print quality A LOT, I just don’t like the cost of the toner cartridges, what can you recommend?” The sales person was extremely helpful. Hint: I called the sales line to ask my questions in the context of selecting a new printer, not the technical support line.

She told me that even though my document was black and white, since I had it on the color setting I was getting some CMY (cyan, magenta, yellow) spit out along with the K (black) to produce such a lovely, crisp document. She suggested that I switch to ‘Print in Grayscale’ but modify some of the other settings under Document Options and Printer Features. Oh yeah, the ones with names that I have no idea what they do.

I implemented the advice and guess what? I was able to produce the same quality in ‘Print in Grayscale’. Yippeee! Yes, I live a very simple life and this made me extremely happy! I haven’t been printing this way long enough to have conclusive results about my color toner cartridges but those little lights have been on for over a month so they don’t appear to be part of the usage equation.

These are the settings I changed for my printer (while not universal, most laserjet printers have some form of these options):

- Printer Properties / Advanced / Document Options: Color Printing Mode set to ‘Monochrome’

- Printer Properties / Advanced / Printer Features: Print All Text as Black set to ‘Enabled’.

- Printer Properties / Advanced / Printer Features: Raster Compression set to ‘Best Quality’.

- Printer Properties / Color / Color Options set to ‘Print in Grayscale’.

The Print All Text as Black resulted in a nice saturation of all my text, especially the bold headings. The Raster Compression, really a quality setting, produced clear line detail for the illustrations.

We operate a second, lower end black and white printer, an HP LaserJet P2015. I was able to improve it’s print quality by changing the following:

- Printer Properties / Advanced / Document Options / Printer Features: Print All Text as Black set to ‘Enabled’.

- Printer Properties / Paper/Quality / Print Quality: Set to ‘ProRes 1200 (180 lpi), the highest quality print setting.

Happy Printing!

Fabulous comments left on my last post! I like when a subject prompts that type of sharing. I’ve made several different lists for the unbelievable number of projects I have in the pipeline at the moment. I slept really good this weekend!

Some thoughts on comments:

I’ve struggled since the start of this blog to find balance with the comments. I go in phases. Sometimes I respond to every comment I get personally (my preference) and sometimes I savor the reading, let them sit in my inbox for several weeks and then finally admit defeat and delete them without responding. Guilt mixed with relief.

I use the word ‘responding’ to refer to the fun type of back and forth, sending a little note just to say “hi, you struck a chord with me, yes there really is a person on the other end of the line who appreciates the effort you extended to leave some thoughtful words.” And believe me, I ALWAYS feel that way when you take the time to leave a comment.

Responding is different than answering questions. I always answer questions. I try and also copy those answers to the comments. Sometimes I forget and the person that asked the question is the only one hearing the answer. Not good because others are out there with the same question, patiently checking back to see if I answered.

Time for a new approach (no really, I’m going to do it this time!): Responding and answering questions only in the comments. Why that is so hard for me I don’t know. I like the personal connection that e-mail affords and I’m going to miss that part, a lot! I’m also the kind of person that doesn’t like to step on any toes or (god forbid) inadvertently offend someone I don’t know!

My ‘Administrator’ comments show up in a box bordered by a thin orange line making them easy to pick out on the screen.

Wish me strength to execute this plan, thank you, I love you all!

If my 2008 had a tag line it would be Focus. Finding, losing, regaining, keeping. Each day I attempt to strike an elusive tightrope pose where the pole in my hand has family sitting happily on one end and my muse on the other. Both have been extremely feisty lately.

I put a lot of effort into being productive between 9:30 am (last bus goes off to school) and 3:30 pm (first bus arrives home). Part well-laid plan, part raw sit down and just do it-ness. Lisa Call has featured a series of posts on the subject of Intent which she obviously wrote just for me One article shares this link to a story about putting rocks and pebbles and sand in a jar. The concept (holy cow!) has literally transformed how I approach my work.

Please share your thoughts and tricks on how you focus in the comments. I have a very large rock pile sitting next to my desk right now and NEED the inspiration!

ACEO by Lisa Call, 2.5″ x 3.5″. Lisa made 3 of these available to her newsletter subscribers several weeks ago. While violating one of my focus rules and reading e-mail mid-day I was lucky enough to be one of the first to respond. I am an incredibly huge fan of Lisa’s work and being able to own a small piece of it brings me unbelievable joy.

Three Notelets before they flew the coop. I’ll let you know what happens…

I’ve enjoyed Kim Kight’s blog, Dioramarama, since the beginning of time. Her writing style and enthusiasm for EVERYTHING textile is a joy to take in. She’s also a really nice person. I still remember the lovely note I received from her when I first started blogging (the type of note that gives you the motivation to keep on writing even though your mother is the only one commenting). I was so excited when I clicked on Bloglines yesterday and discovered she’s started a new blogging adventure called True Up, described as ‘All Fabric, All the Time’. Congratulations Kim!

Before:

After:

Big difference! I stitched up a trio of Notelets today and got a bit lazy. I started topstitching the spine without changing my needle. I thought it might be worthwhile to show you guys an up close view of the quality variation between using a Universal Needle (the top photo) and a Topstitching Needle (the second photo). The thread and tension was the same, only the needle changed.

At this point of the construction, the needle is stitching through 4 layers of fabric: 2 folded over spine fabric + 1 lining + 1 exterior. Add to those 4 layers of cloth a layer of Peltex stabilizer. Holy moly!

Topstitching needles feature an extra large eye to accommodate thick thread. They also have an extra sharp point that allows the needle to penetrate easily through multiple layers. A Jeans needle is very similar to a topstitching needle, it shares the extra sharp point and strong shaft. I often use the two interchangeably. Read that as: whatever I have on hand!

The limitations of trying to utilize a Universal needle for this job are painfully obvious in the photo. Frayed thread caused by the needle attempting to pierce through the layers and dragging the thread along for the ride. The stitch tension is way off, see all the blue pin dots? That’s the blue bobbin thread pulling up to the top of the fabric. At the upper right hand corner where I made the turn you can see an angled thread pulling across the corner. Compare that to the nice neat corner in the second photo.

Some might not like the large holes created by the larger needle eye. I actually like the definition it gives the topstitching. I have a few more finishing details and then I’ll show off these cuties!

4/17/08: Answers to questions from the comments:

- From Teresa, do I change my stitch length when I topstitch? Yes, from 2.3 to 2.5. Not for any technical reason, just because I like a longer stitch aesthetically.

- Sarah asked about needles for quilting and piecing. I use Universals for my piecing but I like ‘Quilting’ needles for both free-motion and walking foot quilting that I do on my home machine. The Quilting needle has a larger eye and a sharper point. It gives me better thread tension and doesn’t ‘drag’ on the fabric, especially noticeable when doing free-motion work.

- KathieB asked about metallic thread. Eek, that stuff scares me. I asked Kristin LaFlamme this same question several months ago because she does some beautiful free-motion quilting work with metallic threads. She recommended using a #90 Topstitching needle. Kristin also told me she uses Microtex needles for everything else, piecing and quilting with the exception of Stretch needles for knits. Patty A. recommends Microtex too in the comments: “It goes thru the fabric like butter without the fabric goobering up at the beginning or at the end.” I’m definitely picking up a pack and plan to try them out. (Patty gets a star for using the technical term “goobering up” which gave me a laugh because I knew EXACTLY what she meant.)