Thanks for dropping by the March segment of the Lessons Learned Linky, a special place to share all the things you discover in your quilting journey in an effort to spare others the distress of learning the hard way.
If there's anything I'm skilled at, it's making mistakes. So here are my astute observations from last month. Firstly, you may remember the new
Add-A-Quarter Plus Ruler I introduced to you with
a free snowflake pattern. The following picture illustrates its proper use. The skinny side is also good for scraping difficult to grasp fabric debris off your cutting mat and into the trash. What you don't see here is the piece of packaging tape wrapped around the edge of the ruler because somebody nicked it with their rotary cutter.
Lesson Learned
Do not use the tapered edge of the
Add-A-Quarter Plus Ruler to cut a straight edge on irregular chunks of fabric when the thick edge is completely sufficient. Otherwise, the rotary cutter will slide up that thing like a skateboard ramp and veer dangerously close to your fingers. Then you will have to repair it with packaging tape so you don't look as dumb as you feel when taking tutorial photos. One side is for folding; the other is for trimming.
There's no way I'd just do one foolish thing in the course of a month that even has an extra day. Therefore I bring you a tale of marking pens. I used the
Sewline Air Erasable Pen to mark a quilt with a short deadline. Unfortunately, the purple marks did not rapidly fade, and days later they remained. Using the eraser from the
Sewline Duo only served to make the marks appear even more vividly. I was able to drench and scrub them out, but that's not ideal. As for the
Sewline Duo, the marker makes thicker brown marks that can successfully be erased with the accompanying eraser pen. Unfortunately, if you don't like your original markings, and attempt to make new ones in a place where you have erased, your markings will vanish. It is also a bit tedious to go over every mark you made with and eraser. I've used the
Clover Air Erasable Marker on precious projects, and found that it erased much quicker than the Sewline version. This makes it a better choice if you intend to get around to your quilting immediately. It also makes a very thin purple line. I like the ease of erasing a
Frixion pen with heat. Unfortunately, like a germ, the ink is still there whether you see it or not after pressing. The ink does leave a white shadow, which is more apparent on certain fabrics than others, and can resurface in in it's original color in the cold. Another important factor to note is that you should not use a Friction pen when you have no desire for your ink to vanish. For example, noting which fabrics to use in each section of a paper-piecing pattern, or drawing an elaborate design on paper and proceeding to leave it in a very hot car (Buh-bye design!).
Lesson Learned
Test your marking pens out to know which is the best fit for your project.
I've bought myself a new iron because my last one was very bad and did this to the backing for a mini. It could have been much worse. I'm relieved it didn't do this to a completed top.
Lesson Learned
Replace your iron when it starts acting naughty instead of after it creates unforgivable damage.
A few rules, if you don't mind.
