IronEz Review Awhile back a company sent two of these to Kelli and I to review. It s an ironing board spray bottle holder. Admittedly, I kind of forgot all about them well truth be told it ended up under a partially completed charity quilt and there it stayed. Then as I was getting ready for retreat I was rustling around and unearthed it. (I m sure some of you can relate!) Last minute I decided to throw it in and let some of the ladies tell us what they thought of it. When I got to the retreat I hooked it up and told everyone to try it. I comes with the holder and an empty bottle that you can fill with anything. I filled it with the cheap Wal-Mart spray starch. I know a lot of people poo-poo cheap spray starch in favor of Best Press but I m a cheapo, and I don t think the extra money that Best Press costs is worth it so I m a good old Niagara Spray Starch girl. (I know I can hear some of you gasping. It s okay) I m being honest and that s what I filled my bottle with.
You can use your own bottle of whatever you like in the holder. You don t need the spray bottle but I wanted to test the product properly.spray bottle included. The bottle is a good spray bottle. I ve bought spray bottles before and they didn t work properly. This one does work but personally in my opinion, I would rather cut the expense of the product and not have the bottle included but I digress. The holder snaps onto the ironing board super easy. It can easily adjust to any thickness of ironing board. It s light weight and easy to carry should you be transporting it. Here s what else we found. The hardest part about it was to get in the habit of using it. Here s Nell pressing some pieces for her quilt. Notice the spray bottles on ironing board? Notice what is in the holder?
Nell s pop. The majority of the time while at the retreat, I noticed that the spray bottle was on the ironing board. I really do think it s habit though. I think if I am going to use one of these regularly, I would have to consciously dedicate myself to thinking about using it to hold the spray starch until it became a habit. I m so used to setting the spray on the ironing board. Habits can be hard to break but I think I m going to give it a try.
So what do I think do I like it? I like it. I really think I would be more inclined to use it for my water bottle though. I don t know maybe I need two. One could be for my water bottle. One could be for my water bottle. On those days when I have a marathon of pieces to press, I sure would love having two. You might remember I bought that GIANT bag of half square triangles. This one.
I m gonna need a drink in the holder on the day I tackle this bag of bonus triangles. Good news for you is this: If you re interested the company has offered to give all of my readers a 20% discount if you order your own IronEZ Ironing Board Spray Bottle (or pop) Holder. How cool is that??? You can find the company website here. If you order make sure to the enter the code jk20off. They are originally $24.99 but with the code they will be $19.99. Last Weekend Last weekend was a busy and perfectly fun one for me. Saturday I headed out to an estate sale (which was fabulous) then went on to thrifting at the thrift store and then onto our booth in Harmony Minnesota to get things straightened up a bit. My estate sale was wonderful.i had a blast there. I
got lots of great things including this coffee table that Kayla called dibs on. I got some knitting and crocheting things for Kayla.I got some rag rugs for the booth lots of things. I had a love hate relationship with the estate sale. NOTHING WAS MARKED. They just kept saying make an offer. I hate that. Then a lady checked out in front of me. She told the owners, can I just offer you the same prices I would pay for things if they were at the local thrift store. The owners said yes. Then I felt more comfortable. When it came time for me to check out..i did the same. While I was at the antique shop I took some pictures of my some of my favorite things.i love this booth. The owner of this booth is the lady that runs the Just Precious Vintage pop up store in Decorah.
Check out this quilt she has for sale. and this one too.
This one is hand quilted.it is a summer quilt. It is thin with only a flannel white fabric as the backing. soft. I just loved it. It s so
Another booth has lots of small quilts. This one has fussy cut flowers around the outside of the star.
This one I really liked. I have TONS of bonus triangles. I am tempted to use this as a jumping off spot to make a quit. There were stacks of these small quilts. Here s a basket quilt..
Check out this little shelf made from a crate.
I love this There s No Place Like Home cross stitch. Happily everything in this booth was 50% off.
This is my friend s booth. go. I always shop her booth when we Connie had sent me a note asking that I keep my eyes open for a cutter quilt. I purposely check out Karen s booth hoping she might have one. I did find this It s only a top and was once part of a tie quilt.
I ended up buying it hoping that it might be what Connie needed knowing that if she didn t want it one of you might be interested in using it as a cutter quilt. After my visit to the antique shop I went back to the estate sale. There were some things there that the owners wanted more money for. I thought it was a little bit high. So I decided that if I stopped back and no one else had bought the items, I felt comfortable to offer a little less. Well it turns out there were quite a few of the things left at the sale. The family was packing everything that was left up and they were more or less giving the things away. I ended up getting the four fruit prints that I thought Kayla would like for $10 for them all. Previous they had said they thought $10 each was what they wanted. I was thrilled.and it turns out Kayla did love them and kept them all. From there I went home and started sorting through my goodies. There were two LARGE bags of sewing/crocheting/knitting things that I just grabbed and bought without really seeing what was in the bags. As I sorted I found this It s the will and the death certificate of the owner of the items.
Ugh that made me feel uncomfortable. I ended up contacting the family and asking if they wanted it back. They said yes. So with that in mind, Hubby and I made plans for Sunday to go back to the house where the sale was, return the will and then go back to Harmony and have him help me move some things around.so that s what we did. I took a bit of time working on the booth while Hubby loaded things and unloaded things. He ended up chatting quite a bit with the customers too. Around here you get guys together and the weather is always the main topic. I m so happy Hubby can keep himself entertained. After we were done in Harmony we took and went to a yard sale. Hubby had found the sale via a Facebook group. We pulled into the yard and weren t sure if we were at the right place. Hubby is much more adventurous than me so he pulled way into the yard. A guy was there and within minutes we knew he was a veteran knew he served in Korean and knew he had sheds of junk we could look at. Only problem, the junk was junk. The roofs on the sheds were TERRIBLY leaking. Boxes of stuff were on boxes of stuff and the boxes had deteriorated and then animals had run over them. It was gross.
I pulled up my big girl pants and decided that if I was a real picker I better start picking. Hubby found this old scale. These, even in the shape this one is in, are a hot item.
I found a deteriorating brown paper back of old license plants that are collectible right now too. Hubby was happy with that. We found a few things but all of them were dirty and needed lots of cleaning. It was an adventure that s for sure. We definitely talked about this trip all the way home. It was more than interesting. That was our weekend. Once we got home it was time for me to get the house cleaned up and ready for childcare. That s my usual Sunday evening task. It was a great weekend.
Changing Times I ll likely get myself in trouble for this. It s probably suppose to kept under raps. But there s something that has started to grind and grind and grind on me more and more. So much so that I think I m going to open my mouth and talk about it. I m so frustrated with it that I m to point that I m going to say it and if I end up in trouble for it, so be it. Several years ago Kelli and I started submitting items to quilting magazines. We loved it. We sat down, designed something, went up to out stash and started sewing. When we were done, we submitted it. That s how we made great quilts like Kelli s Double Wedding Ring quilt. Like Stars and Scraps Forever
At times we ve designed something thought it would make a great quilt but didn t have the right fabric so we d go hunt for it online. That s what happened with this quilt.
Then occasionally we d find a fabric line we like and design quilts around the fabric line. Like this cover quilt.
Like.Points of Interest At times we let our stash dictate the quilt. That was true
with this one I had a whole bunch of red bonus triangles and wanted to use them up. I came up with this as a way to do it. I had tons of medium toned fabrics and decided here was the perfect place to use them. My stash dictated the quilt. (Photo credit to All People Quilt.) Have you noticed that every quilt I showed I said we I said my I love that. I feel like I am the designer. I feel like I have control to create. It makes me feel attached to the quilts as they came from the heart.our designs our work.our effort the colors and ideas from our heart. We love that and love working with magazines that allow us to do that. Our hats off to American Patchwork and Quilting for allowing us to do that for all of this time. We have worked
with other magazines in the same capacity. I just happened to show quilts from American Patchwork and Quilting. Now there are many quilting magazines out there. In the past we have enjoyed working with many. But now, many of the magazines have been bought and are part of a big company. A very few amount of people are deciding what and where things are published. Through one company we were put on a designer list. emails from them and I end up feeling frustrated. We get A typical email will say For our September issue of (name of magazine) we have (this theme) We need quilts that meet the theme either by design or fabric We are looking for (indicates what size of quilts and how many of each size) Suggest fabric lines are Moda (fabric line) Mayowood (fabric line) Micheal Miller (fabric line) You may consider other things but they need to fit the theme of course put your take on it Your submission is due (date)-side note: these dates are typically a week after the email is sent Your project if chosen is due (date) In one email, four different magazines will be listed. We are asked to name the magazine we want to be considered for. To submit, we need to fill out a design sheet which includes all the details of the quilt. We need to have a PDF file of the quilt. There is no guarantee our quilt will be selected. So we go through all the work to design something that fits into the mold. We find the fabric line -we do all the work and maybe or maybe not we ll be chosen. I feel like the creativity is
sucked out of the process. I also feel a little used. We could easily spend 4 hours on this and get nothing in return. It s a lot of hoop jumping. If we are chosen, we have to then make the contacts to acquisition the fabrics, cut out the quilt, make the top, machine quilt it, mail it to them. For this we get $400 (for most projects, that isn t minimum wage) from this particular company if it s a large project. Less if it s smaller. UGH. I now am starting to feel like I am a worker to promote a company s fabric line.a worker to fill the slots in a magazine a busy bee working for the industry and not a quilter, not a designer, not a creative being I don t like it. I don t like it at all. This is me writing and my feelings. I have talked to Kelli and both of us are on the same page. We re both kind of sad. I realize we can still submit anything we want I m disgruntled. I know it. I m not a good rule follower when it comes to this. Where is there room for the scrappy, from our stash quilts, that I love? Where is the make do attitude quilters had in the past? Where is the quilt that was inspired by something I found in an antique shop? Where? lost in the stacks of pre-cut fabric line quilts. Don t get me wrong I like a quilt from a fabric line now and then in fact we ve designed some and have fun with the process. But now and then not all the time! Variety and moderation are best. For me it s turned into such an industry. Maybe it was a big pushing industry all along and I was naive, not seeing it. Maybe not I don t know. I m just sad about it and I think it s stealing some of my desire to quilt. and that is even sadder. I am sure this is where the industry has lead the magazines after all they are just one small part of the industry. I can
understand that, but doesn t mean I m still not sad. I want my grandma s days of quilting back. Sadly, they are gone. I am sure for some designers, they use the email requests we get as a jumping off board and love having an idea for to start from when it comes to designing. I am so happy for them if it works that way my brain doesn t work that way most of the time Instead of taking it as a jumping off point, I end up taking it as being told what to submit and it turn turns me off from wanting to submit anything. So..that leaves me muddling through looking for my place. I know one thing for sure.it won t be busy bee working for the industry. Maybe I burned some bridges in the process of writing this but I m so bothered by it. I been in this world long enough to know I have to do things on my terms. Garage Sale Bliss Cresco had their city wide garage sales a bit ago. The sales started on Thursday. Kalissa was chopping at the bit to go so I offered to watch Carver but told her if she found something good to let me know. Well a short while later I got a message. You would love this sale. Is there anything you want? Well I was in the middle of childcare Ho-hum. Totes I couldn t really see a lot from the pictures.
Fabric. More totes sheets I think.
More totes but what is it? Cooking books oh wait, quilt books too.
Another tote Linens?
I ended up calling Kalissa and asking what was in the pictures. Then see said, Don t you see those tables of fabric and the totes of fabric and the quilting books and the embroidery stuff and the sheets. Oh that s what it was. Then Kalissa said she has totes of quilt tops that were $20 to $40 depending on the size. Oh my and I was stuck doing childcare! Kalissa asked if they would stay open later and I could come after I was done with childcare. They said yes so after childcare was done, I went. The garage sale was hosted by a lady that was my age-ish. The stuff I was interested in was all her mother s stuff. mother is a prolific quilter. Her I ended up buying this fabric for backings. I think there is about 8 yards on the bolt all for $10-not bad. The green piece is 6 yards and was $18.
By the time I got there the mother was gone and the daughter was not super friendly. I kind of felt like I was putting her out so I looked as quickly as possible. I am sure I would have bought more fabric had I not felt rushed. were totes and totes of scraps most 1/4 yard cuts. There
This piece was $5. There s a 1 1/2 yards. I have a quilt here of Kayla s I need to work on and this will likely be just what I need to finish it up.
Yes I ll take batik fabric for 20 cents. I would have dug through all the boxes had I not felt uncomfortable. Carver and Scotty were with and I could tell that Carver was annoying the lady. Then I looked at a couple quilt tops. totes of folded up quilt tops. Oh my. There were FOUR large I don t need any but I
bought this one and will add it to the charity quilts. All baby sized tops were $20. The lady is a very good seamstress. If I had more money I would have bought a dozen or two and finished them for charity but alas I still have a house that needs to be paid for. I picked this one as there always seems to be a shortage of boy-ish quilts.
In the FOUR LARGE totes of scrap bags I found this.do you recognize what it is?
Bonus triangles..and a really lot of them. I m thinking about challenging myself to make a quilt out of them. I haven t opened the bag. I m a little afraid if I open it, I won t get everything back into it. From there I picked out a few linens. I was a little frustrated as they put the price tag sticker right over the stitching. Then when I pulled it up, the thread came undone. Ugh.
Remember that I ve been looking for old cross stitch and embroidery sayings well I found this too. All of the following ones were bundled together for $5 for them all. This one is my favorite.
Well between these and the ones I ve collected, I ve decided that I am going to get more selective about which ones I keep and which ones I pass on. At first I thought they would be hard to find but I guess not.i ve found so many in the last few months. So that was my garage sale finds. I m actually happy I didn t take time to look more I could have come home with the back end of the truck stuffed full of fabric. YES there was that much and more! I have to kind of laugh. People are always wondering how I find so many things quilting related at thrift stores and garage sales. The truth is, I m not the only who finds stuff. All of our kids like estate and garage sales. If they find things, they contact me. We have a message groups through Messenger. We write a message and it gets sent out to all of us. Well often Hubby will say something like this, We
need to be on the lookout for a snowblower. I put it on the group and the kids watch for us while we re watching too. Thank heavens we have a pretty close knit group and no one minds thrifting. I love having 7 pair of eyes watching.i don t know if the kids spouses like it so much but they are getting used to us.