BLETCHLEY PARK & ROTARY CUTTING

Hi from the sixteen degree country in February.  Weather gone totally mad

This weekend is the BLETCHLEY PARK QUILT SHOW - 25 / 26th February 2012

Unfortunately I wont be going, it should be very good

This invitation card is an interesting way of presenting text - students of mine please note!!!

Not much going on here in the studio at the moment, trying to rest as much as possible & sometimes surf for wedding outfits that dont cost as much as a small car

Please remember that its not too late to sign up for the courses starting 1st March 2012

Visit the PAGE BUTTONS above

I hope that you like the updated blog, I am going to leave it like this for a while (hmmmm???)

The bird image is a design for cloth as it is a repeated image, it needs some 'tweaking' (reminds me of Youve got Mail)

Remember that film?

I like to buy my wadding from www.creativegrids.com  they have a FREE POSTAGE offer on at the moment, they dont just sell wadding but all sorts of stuff, good place to get 505 spray glue with no postage, I still love my omnigrid rulers

Even though creative grids have an excellent range.  I suppose thats what I started with and because I have so many sizes (lucky me, I know, but collected over more than 30 years, so I deserve them, I have 2 broken ones as well both large squares and both broken by SOMEONE ELSE, you can guess who, when left propped up in the wrong place, is there a right place for sewing? if there is then someone tell me....no dont bother....a house...a home ...a stitcher whoo hoo)

I like the yellow colour and the black of the creative grids rulers does not show up as well for me, having said that I have quite a few of their rulers as well and one random other make

They are expensive but oh so worth it

You need 2 cutting mats a very large one and a very small one (or a turntable mat which I have purchased recently but am not quite so enamoured with yet)

Then a good quality 45mm ROTARY CUTTER got to be wither OLFA or Friskers - dont buy a cheap make, believe me, dont

Then comes the rulers

1inch by 6 inch or 12 inch

6 inch square or 4 inch square

I hate the rulers with half inches on the edges, believe me, I have some and no end of times my students cut wrong because of this

Then the important one 12 inch by 6 inch or 14 inch by 4 inch

Lots of people buy the long 6 inch by 24 to start with, much too long and uncontrollable, great for cutting strips, but you need to learn how to control the cutting method before buying such a large ruler

I love my 15 inch ruler - the broken one & a new one and also the 12 inch ruler, I would buy a 12 and a half inch square for squaring up blocks and this is one of the creative grid ones that I do have

MIND YOUR FINGERS, when you cut.

Except for the one inch ruler which is really for marking and cutting around templates with a small cutter, your fingers should be behind the one inch mark

Get loads of scrap fabric, tatty old stuff, IRON it smooth, dont try to cut through lumpy bumpy pieces of fabric

ITS A PET HATE OF MINE - when students do not IRON their fabric BEFORE CUTTING

Successful patchwork relies on careful stage by stage

1.  IRON - leave to go cool before cutting

2.  Cut unfolded

3. Cut with a sharp blade

Inbetween make sure that templates are accurate and markings can be seen, before cutting

Remember that the corner junctions are the most important for accuracy

I think that I will post this under a PAGE above, so it will be easy to return to and for me to add too

Am off to explore the sunshine

Thanks for reading x