Little Scraps of Magic

[Marianne G.]

[quote="suehenyon"]Rosemary, this is a great thread. Having company coming for sewing today :roll: someone had to clean up the "studio" (eh hem choke cough) and found a bunch of samples that need keeping, but what to do with them? I'm thinking a big album with sleeves would fit the spot and then, what in the world was I thinking with a bolt of Timtex?

Seeing you have excess Timtex (lucky girl) why don't you use that to attach your samples to? Timtex is a great base for making "books" or cards and can easily be coloured if white is not your colour and you want a pretty background for your samples. Personally I hate plastic sleeves put in folders/ring binders with samples. It stood up they droop and after a few months the holes in the sleeves give in and you have a mess. A few years down the road and the plastic goes bad and can ruin your threads if you are unlucky. Instead you can cut the Timtex to your desired size, attach a side using a folded piece of interfaced fabric sewing it down of course with one of your favourite decorative stitches making sure the piece of fabric is big enough to form a spine when you have finished your "bible". Once you have all your pages you can either make a hanging system by putting a knitting needle though the folded spine and find a box to hang them by punching half circles in opposite sides of the box or you can sew the spines together and put a front and back on the "book" or go a bit wild and do a bit of research into various ways of putting pages together. Sheeren La Plantz has a great book called Cover to Cover with a multitude of ideas and I am sure anybody into scrap booking will be able to come up with lots of newer ideas too

Marianne

[Norma H.]

That's why you should always buy two :mrgreen:

[Catherine S.]

Great idea Marianne, but sadly I have no Timtex. I will check to see if I have enough of Ricky's Stable Stuff. I think I have a roll of Heat and Bond somewhere. I may try that. Now, just need to get the two grandchildren to take a nap. Then I will be free to go downstairs and play. It is a very gloomy day today. A nap may be calling me too. :lol: :lol:

[Catherine S.]

Susan--I would love to have a bolt of Timtex!

[Catherine S.]

Marianne - lots of great suggestions and points to consider for construction of sample books etc. I am not a great fan of the plastic sleeves because of the droopyness you mention. I don't have any Timtex either.

Will have to do a bit of thinking before I start constructing. I might even try making up different samples :shock: :shock: (I am usually 'allergic' to making different samples of things :P :wink: :lol: )

[Catherine S.]

Rosemary--how about a heavy weight fusible interfacing?

[Carol G.]

I plan on doing this project. It's just the kick I need, at least after the horrid January here! But I don't think I have ever bought stabilizer. Any suggestions? For the stitch bible but also for the applique 'f'?

[Rita C.]

I think any fusible interfacing will do for the stitch bible. You will be putting two pages together so you don't want it to be too bulky for that. As for the letter F I used Ricky Tims Stable stuff which is wonderful and tears away really easily when you are done.Hope that helps.

[Norma H.]

Now a little off topic here, but I use Ricky's stabilizer under the letters in the BOM, because I want them to have that little extra puff, so I tear away around the letter and leave it under the letter

[Catherine S.]

I have not been able to find my Stable Stuff, but I did find my Heat an Bond lite. I may have to use it for the Raphsody if I can't find a shop with Soft Fuse. What was wrong with the Steam a Seam II? I really liked it. I don't know why they change things when the seem to work fine to me. :? :? For the Stitch Bible I am using some heavier interfacing. I want it stiff. I will back the pages together and overlock the edges.

[Margo C.]

Cathy, here is info about Steam A Seam: http://warmcompany.com/sas-update.html

[Catherine S.]

Thanks Margo. I guess I am not the only impatient person out there. Lot of comments. Last update was Jan. 2014 and they are still working to find the right paper.

[wendy w.]

On my stitch bible I used bondaweb to attach the front to interfacing then bondawebbed the two samples together to make a page. I zigzagged around the edges of the pages, added a fancy cover and back then used a rivet thing to make holes in pages and threaded with cord and made a knot on the front.

It's a good idea to do a couple of stitches as its set on machine then vary width and length to make a reference and write changes with a micron pen alongside. Unless you have a fancy Bernina with a million stitches and you'll lose the will to live after a few pages :lol:

[E.M. T.]

I know that one ! :shock:

[Rita C.]

:lol: :lol: :lol: Even if you don't have a Bernina, you can still lose the will to live with a machine that has over 200 stitches! And how many do I use? Probably about 3. :lol: