Handy Hint  #1

You can print labels on to fabric, with a bit of luck!  Basically you write/draw your design in Word or Paint or whatever software you have that’ll do the job, then print it onto a piece of suitable fabric.  Don't forget to allow for a hem all round your label!

To do this, gently iron the (washed) fabric onto a piece of freezer paper cut to about A4 size (or whatever size your printer likes best) to act as backing, load the fabric/paper sheet into the printer and print at high quality.  A printer that feeds from the back and out the front is more likely to work well than if the sheets are rolled inside the printer, when the fabric and backing might detach.

Once printing is completed, remove the backing paper and let the ink dry naturally; then hot iron the label to fix the print into the fabric. Seems to work well with many ink-jet printers, we haven’t tried it on laser printers, though.

Also worth checking that it doesn’t wash out, we found some cheap inks did!

Handy Hint  #2

. . . is one that came about because I did a Show and Tell using my Poppy Day quilt at my local Mead Quilter’s Group on the night that Empress Mills did a presentation.

They picked up that I was using their HT Polyester thread – an industrial thread manufactured for blind hemming – for both the back side of the applique and for the back of the quilting.

As they say on their blog: “Who would have thought this most practical of threads could be used for such a creative purpose. It is for this reason we should all look at the properties of thread (not just their labelled use) and consider them before each project. It can be the case that the properties fit exactly the effect you wish to create.”

Here’s the link: www.empressmills.co.uk

Handy Hint  #3

Do you use those water-soluble (usually blue) pens for marking out and find they go dry quite quickly?

Well, when they do, pull off the end cap (opposite end from tip!) and drip a couple of drops of surgical spirit into the pen.  Comes back to life!

(Get surgical spirit – which is colourless – from a pharmacy, don't be tempted to use methylated spirit or BBQ lighter fluid, because the colour may stain.)

Handy Hint  #4

Piecing and pressing problems . . . some modern ironing boards have a metal work surface with lots of holes in or thick foam under the metallised surface which makes firm pressing as you piece less than effective.  Also, you probably have to leap up and down between sewing table and ironing board!

What you need is a handy-person, a  12" x 16" (30 cm x 40 cm) bit of 12 mm MDF or chipboard, a replacement ironing board cover or some Ironing Board Covering * cut to 16" x 20" (40 cm x 50 cm) and a stapler!

Stretch the covering tautly across the board using plenty of staples (on the back!), neatly mitre-fold the corners and staple down and you'll have a handy table-top ironing board at your elbow as you piece and press!

* Try this link  www.empressmills.co.uk/heat-resistant-fabrics

and share the minimum 1 metre (x 135 cm) with a friend or two!

Handy Hint  #5

Some very effective and interesting quilts can be made using 'half-square' and 'quarter-square' triangles; however it's pretty tedious cutting and sewing together triangles to make them!

So, why not make them in pairs or strips, or indeed big rectangles of fabric?

I produced 2 helpful 'how-to-do' sheets on this in 2007 for my students of the time and you might like to review, print or download them from here.

The basic instructions for half- and quarter-square triangles are

. . .and about making large numbers of half-square triangles are

Obviously the same idea can be used to make sheets of quarter-square triangles!