Tag Archives: Pinmoors

The blog move and other things

03 Wednesday Nov 2010

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The blog move…

Moving this blog has been a lot of work and the next few days should see it switched to the new site – God Willing. I’m just testing a new subscription widget which I hope will allow me to just transfer all the current subscribers without them having to do anything. If you don’t get an email when you expected to then please let me know using the form here. I hope you’ll all stick with me on the move. I have some interesting posts coming up including one with Inklingo’s Linda Franz. If you have any questions you’d like me to put to Linda please post them here and I’ll see what I can do.

…and other things

My Kona solids colour card arrived so now I don’t have to guess how close the screen colour is to the colour I need.

And that’s not all. The Pinmoors arrived.

I have to say that while I haven’t used them yet I did try a pin in one. While it is easy to insert the pin, pulling it out is not so easy and so I imagine they will stay in much better than my trial polystyrene ones. The lady who invented them claims they even stay on in the washing machine!

Basting a quilt on a small table

18 Saturday Sep 2010

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I learned a cool way of basting a quilt from Sharon Schamber’s hand basting video some years ago. However whenever I have used it I found problems because the quilts I was basting were larger than the fabric she uses in the video and also because I only have a small table. You can see Sharon’s video here and below is my adaptation of it.

Basting a quilt on a small table – free tutorial

The first step is to mark the centre of the table with some masking tape, then line up the centre of the pressed backing fabric with this line both at the front and back of the table.

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Then flatten out the backing and put a board across it to weigh it down. Lay the batting on top of the backing and smooth it down. Then lay your top on top of the batting making sure you line up the centre of the top with the centre of the back and the masking tape mark on the table.

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Take the second board and place it close to the front of the table on top of the quilt top. Gently smoothing as you go, slide it until it meets the board that is anchoring the backing. Then baste from the board towards you starting in the centre and moving out towards the edges. Once you have several vertical lines of pins you can fill in the large areas between the lines.

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When you have pinned the portion of the quilt in front of you pull the whole sandwich towards you until all the pinned section is hanging off the front of the table and the boards are close to you. Fold the quilt top forwards over the top board.

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Then do the same with the batting. Slide the bottom board back towards the back edge of the table, smoothing the backing as you go. Remember to check the centre is still aligned correctly.

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Smooth the batting back over the backing then smooth the top over the batting.

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Then slide the top board back over the quilt top towards the back of the table until it reaches the other board. Smooth the quilt top as you go. Then you can pin the rest of the quilt. If you haven’t completed the quilt by this stage just repeat the last step until the whole quilt has been pinned.

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Pinmoors

As you can see I used my make-shift version of the Pinmoors product. I have actually ordered some of the real thing which I am looking forward to getting. Catherine from Catherine’s Place is running a co-op on them. The price is Aus$19.25 for  a pack of 50 and Aus$36.50 for a pack of 100 INCLUDING POSTAGE! That’s a really good price, in fact its the best I’ve found and believe me I’ve been looking. If you’d like to join the co-op just sign up a the Yahoo group here or visit Catherine’s Blog Big Blue Shed for more details. I have no affiliation with either Pinmoors or Catherine’s Place I’m just sharing useful info.

Quilting the Arabesque and the basting experiment continued…

29 Sunday Aug 2010

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Having basted my Arabesque the other day I set straight into quilting it. It’s coming together nicely and I’m very happy with it so far. I found a tiny nick in the background in one place so I think if I’m going to continue with reverse appliqe then I’ll need to invest in a pair of duckbilled scissors. Has any of you used these? And if so, do you find then helpful?

The basting experiment continued…

Doing the actual basting was relatively easy. In fact, easier than using safety pins because I didn’t have to do them up. If you have any bent pins though, then save them up for this activity because it would be much easier if the pins weren’t straight. As to quilting with this set up… Hand quilting is not as difficult as it is with safety pins as the pins themselves don’t get tangled when you fold the quilt up but the thread does tend to wrap around the pins which is a pain. In my case that often whips the polystyrene plug off the pin. This may not happen with the Pinmoors because they are denser and larger. I think you could fix this problem by pinning your quilt upside down and having the backing on top when you pin so that the pins are underneath when you quilt. This would also help for hand quilting with safety pins though it wouldn’t stop the damage they cause.

The verdict

I think Pinmoors would be great for machine quilting because they are more easily removed than safety pins. I think they’d be fine for hand quilting if you pinned the quilt upside down. On my next quilt I’m going to try a variation of the normal thread basting and see how that goes. I’l let you know.

Apropos of nothing…

I made a salad last night to go with dinner and added some Kiwifruit. I thought it looked so lovely that I took a photo. What do you reckon?

A basting experiment

28 Saturday Aug 2010

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I detest basting with safety pins. I have bought two different kinds and each one has caused holes in the fabric, split threads and got caught together and with my thread when I’m hand quilting. I really prefer to baste with thread as per Sharon Schamber.

However, I recently saw a very interesting way of basting using ordinary pins and some sort of foam plugs. The system is ingenious and is called Pinmoor. I wanted to try it but they are quite expensive at US$19.95 for 50 plus postage to Australia. I wanted to see if the concept would work for me before I shelled out all that money. (I don’t think 50 will go very far.) A lady called Helen, on a list I subscribe to, suggested using Moroday Gap Filler Rod Draught which is a polystyrene draught excluder and cutting it up. I bought the 5mm diameter one for $2 and cut it up. I concede that these will not last like the Pinmoors and if this system suits me I plan to invest in the real thing. So I sandwiched my Arabesque and used my pins and the draught excluder.

Already I can see the advantage of using the Pinmoors which look more dense than the polystyrene. These ones come off quite easily and I think the denser Pinmoors would adhere a bit more to the pins. [Edit: they must as she says they don’t even come off in the washing machine!] Anyway I’ll let you know how it goes when I start quilting.