Springing Ahead - and a little bit of Cleaning too!
Greetings from snow laden New Hampshire! It usually doesn't take much to put me in a springtime state of mind once we get to March 1, - I've been fondling floral fabrics all month. Today, I'm still looking ahead - but there's 30" of fresh snow on the ground, with more rumored to be coming. I am so sick of French Toast - you have to be a New Englander to get the reference.
Tip 1 - In 'Lindaland', it IS almost spring...so I've got 5 tips for getting your sewing space ready for spring (and summer, but let's not push it). I did all 5 of these while the snow was falling, so feel free to adapt them as you would like to.I have several small quilted wall hangings, so I switched out two that hang behind my sewing room and over my desk to pieces that bring to mind warm weather, flowers and summer nights. It's amazing the difference that that has made.
Tip 2 Just like the timing on clocks and fire extinguishers, I use this time as a reminder to change/sharpen/replenish my rotary cutting tools. Santa was good to me this year, and found the rotary sharpener (blue) while he was out and about. How often do we proclaim the joys of a sharp rotary blade - it makes the jobs easier, very true. It's also much safer to work with a sharp blade in your sewing room - just as a sharp knife in the kitchen is very sharp. I certainly do this throughout the year, but it's nice to get a simple spruceup - and if you have the new supplies on hand, you can do it when the plow goes by.
Tip 3 I can promise never to show you my oven, or the bottom of my purse - every woman needs some secrets. See chocolate stash for correlation. But - I will show you what I found when I looked 'under the hood' at my bobbin area this week. I've been doing a lot of stitching on my On Ringo Lake projects, and it shows - even with Aurifil thread. I don't believe in blowing this area with air - physics will tell you that you will only push the threads into the machine where you can't get it. A handy pipecleaner, and some readers, will have you clean and pristine as quickly as can be. Unlike me, you probably can't build a fuzzy kitty, but you never know. And that's not anything you should strive for, anyway.
Tip 4 goes right along with Tip 3, above - because if you're going to clear out the lint, you might as well change your needle right along with it. Now this is an area that has some controversy with it...some quilters change their needles every 8 hours of sewing, some people have never changed it. My motto is in all things, moderation...so if you get into the habit of changing it every 6 months or so (with the clocks), you will soon become familiar with how to change it, and which needle works with which sewing task...we tend to think that since we're always using 100 % cotton, it's all the same. There's a lot more to it than that...but I digress. Just start. And put the used needles in a child safe container (this is an old clean prescription container that I keep just for that purpose. And finally...Tip #5...Create and build a Portable bag for sewing. Eventually, the warm weather will be here with summer mornings on the porch (sigh), baseball and soccer games, picnics, and lakeside vacations. That's a perfect time for a portable bag - or as I call it, the Binding Bag. Whether you choose handwork, English Paper Piecing, binding (guess where the name comes from!), now is the time to start planning ahead for that.How do you keep clean your space for the warmer weather?