Did you ever look at a product on the shelf at a store and say to yourself, “Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute, now! That’s just a [insert common household item name here] all fancied up in a pretty package, with a disgustingly high price tacked on it!” If you aren’t from the southern U.S., your wording will differ slightly, but you get my drift here. You are shocked/appalled/gobsmacked that someone has decided to repurpose something, call it by another name, and expect you to buy it unquestionably.
Did you answer yes? Well, so have I. Recent discussions with friends on this subject have spurred me on to create this blog to help us consumers sort some of this nonsense out. My intent is to show some examples of these blatantly repurposed objects, tell you what they were originally, and help you to weed out what products really are a good thing to have around.
If you have examples of products you want to tell me about, or things you want me to test-drive for evaluation, I’m more than happy to oblige. I’ve done this for some big name gadget-makers in the quilting and crafts fields, and with quite a few years of experience under my belt, I think you can trust me to make informed judgements.
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I made my first quilt in 1972, out of leftovers from summer clothes I’d sewn. Nobody told me that the quilt I spotted in McCall’s Needlework and Crafts would be any sort of challenge. After all, it had only one pattern piece, right? It was just an equilateral triangle. I made the pattern out of a piece of cereal box cardboard, traced around it with a #2 pencil on the back of the fabric, and cut it out with my trust Wiss sewing shears. The first day I cut all the pieces. The second day I sewed all the pieces together for the top. The third day, I layered and tied the top together and finished off the edges. That night, it was on the bed. Done and dusted.
How did I get that all done so quickly? No one told me I couldn’t. So I just DID.
No acrylic templates with cropped off corners, no rotary cutter, no Olfa mat. No quarter inch presser foot. No Rowenta steam iron or fancy ironing board that sucked the steam through the fabric. No bias cutters, no corner gauges, no tools to square up the borders. Shoot–I didn’t even use a thimble back then! I just tied it with a double strand of crochet cotton and a square knot, right through that layer of clumpy cotton batting, using a big crewel embroidery needle left over from a kit from the dime store. That’s a pre-Walmart reference for you young’uns out there. Sort of like a dollar store is now, only the stuff was a lot cooler, and nobody worried about what kind of paint the toys had on them, because most of them were still made somewhere in this country.
Although my tastes have changed somewhat since then, I’m still very proud of that first quilt. It’s actually one of the few bed-sized ones I ever made. Now, it’s sort of “why bother” with a bed quilt, going to all that work, just so the cat might throw up on it. Nope, I do what most red-blooded Americans do these days: buy one of those made-in-China knockoffs, and save my efforts for other endeavors. My epic masterworks are for hanging on the walls where the cats can’t barf on them. I love my cats too much to deny them (and me) the pleasure of sitting on the bed.
What I mean to do by telling you all of this is, I’m not a newbie to the sewing and craft world. For many years, I sold at craft fairs and quilt shows, marketed patterns, test drove a lot of equipment and supplies. Some of it out there is excellent. Clover has never made a gadget I didn’t love, for example. They have outstanding ideas and really work to make the sewing, knitting, and crafting world better. I was privileged to try out the Clover Mini-iron before it hit the mass market, and it remains one of my favorite tools. Perfect case of a manufacturer taking a great idea and making it better, because now, they have a guard along the heating element shaft and the heads on the iron are interchangeable for different tasks. One of the best gizmos out there, and I wouldn’t take a farm in Georgia for mine. Well, maybe I would if the farm came along with a couple of hunky-looking farmhands.
So, I’ll be talking here about some of the stuff I’ve come across that I can’t do without now that I have it, and some things that have left me breathless in the aisles of the store, tears of laughter running down my face, because I can’t believe someone thinks I should actually BUY that.
Come on, you know you do it, too.
What’s so good about a mini iron???? Is one kind better than another? I’ve seen them for quilting and scrapbooking, but they look like a waste of money, so now you’ve got me really curious.
The mini irons are great for working on miniature quilts, small piecing, fusible bias applique, and for applying heat set crystals. The best ones are like the Clover brand mini-iron, which look a lot like a soldering iron with a spade-like tip. They also have some other tips available now, so you can bond things more precisely. Clover’s version is top-notch, with a high/low/off switch, a burn guard, and a nifty heat-proof pouch for stowing the iron in as soon as you unplug it.
This is the original version, the one I have
This is the newer version, the one that has two sizes of ironing tips, a narrow tip for applying the fusible bias tape, a ball shaped tip, and a hot knife for stencil cutting. Very versatile for a lot of crafts besides quilting.
This is the heatproof storage pouch:
I’ve also bought a small iron that was labeled a “crafter’s iron”, and it’s more like a toy sized iron. I got it once when I had left my Clover mini-iron at home, and this iron is pretty much worthless if you want a lot of concentrated heat. It has no switch, so it’s either on or off, and has no heat setting control. In fact, I haven’t found much use for this one at all. I’ll shoot a picture of it so you know just what I’m talking about so you can avoid this one. Total waste of money.
Thanks.
So you wouldn’t use one of these for a standard quilt, correct? Better to use your standard iron?
No, I wouldn’t use one of these when working on a standard quilt. I do like using a small iron next to the sewing table, rather than jumping up and down to the ironing board when working on projects with a lot of pieces. Think of that size iron as the travel iron, with maybe a folding handle. Some of them have steam, most don’t, because you don’t want to pack away an iron with water in it. I like the little travel iron and a squirt/mister bottle next to the sewing machine, set up with either a small ironing pad, or one of the little travel ironing boards. Hmm, sounds like I could elaborate in another post. So I will! Thanks!