THE GLUEING DILEMMA

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Yes a little late, but better late than never.  What a holiday season.  As many may know, I take care of my 84 year old father who had massive heart failure the middle of December.  10 days in the hospital and we still have a long recovery.  He fell last night and put a huge gash in his head, spent an hour trying to decide whether to super glue it or not.  Opted not to.  Anyway, my hands are full.  I do however have a wonderful segway on glueing.

Janice and I are in the middle of a huge project, or 27 small projects.  Not sure we can really talk about it, and don't you just hate it when people say that.  Anyway, I made a sweet little quilt over the weekend and tried a new product that made it a lot easier.  I was raw edge appliquing small circles on to blocks, and I tried something new called LAPEL STICK.  A company from Canada sent us a sample.  Great Concept.  Spread it around the edge of the piece you want to applique and stick it on.  It holds while you sew, no pinning, you can press it with the iron and it washes out completely.  It is also very nice because it did not clog or gum up my sewing machine needle either.  The best part is it holds the edges down which is great when Janice machine quilts the quilt.

Now, I had the product, but had not even paid attention until Marlene, My Heritage Fabrics, told me that lots of ladies used ELMERS WASHABLE SCHOOL GLUE STICK.  She had a stick and so I stole it.  I really did, I just told her I am taking this.  I experimented with it on a sample piece.  Almost died at first because it went on bright purple and I was so afraid I was going to ruin the fabric with purple die, but before I had finished sewing the color was gone.

Now the dilemma, which to use.  The ELMERS was a little gooier, but the purple made it easy to see when I was applying it.  So, have you tried either of these methods and what were your results.  Inquiring minds want to know, ok, so I want to know.

Finally got the new patterns up for sale on the website, you may want to take a quick look, http://www.abbeylanequilts.com/.

It takes only 18 fat quarters for the whole quilt.





Have fun with Charm Squares and Ric Rac.


























Great for "Tweens" both girl and boy.

























Also, Janice has made who knows how many FAB FIVE quilts, http://abbeylanequilts.com/FABFIVE.html but here were two that I just loved.  This is the Pretty Posies, she used Sandy Gervais fabric for this one.  This version used 16 fabrics.



and French General on this one, which used 8 fat quarters.   They will be quilted this week.

Glad to be back, sorry it has been awhile.

Have a great week, Janice and Marcea