project sewing room: essential wanna haves

Back to the once a month posting about everything concerning your sewing room. Today I wanted to show you some essential wanna haves that can really be practical in your sewing room. What could they be? Since I live in Germany, I have some found some very nice equivalents to American counterparts.

First up is a die catcher. If you are like me and prefer to use precuts and are a little worried if the color is going to bleed, this is a great solution. Just put a sheet in the washing machine when you wash your quilt or patchwork piece for the first time on a gentle cycle with a gentle washing agent.

Next up is freezer paper German style. There is no wax on this paper, but it is a great substitute for foundation piecing especially if your pattern is longer than DINA4. You can cut to the length that you need. It is also lighter than regular paper and easier to tear. One roll is 85 Euro cents!

Third pictured above are two different heat activated marking pens. Now it is a bit of a secret around here that these pens are "magical." You won't find them in a quilt shop but at the regular office supply store. The pens are "friction" activated and the ink will disappear. You should definitely try with a warm iron and see if it disappears. I will give no guarantee if it does not.

The above pictured beauty is a thread cutter and/or an SOS seam ripper. I received this from my mother many many years ago and tucked it away nicely with the two pairs of Gingher fabric scissors. I am very thankful for them and happy that I never lost them. It is also a little strange that this seems to be a German company and some are even made in Germany; I have never seen them available in a store here!! I've always wanted to put a string on the end and hang it around my neck but never got to that either. This is an invaluable tool...a real essential.


And finally...a really awesome goody! Something you can MAKE for your sewing room or any room for that matter.

This idea came to me earlier in the year when I started thinking about Project Sewing Room. I thought of all kinds of cool ways to hang up blocks in my sewing room. This was one of them! You can either make this using a horizontal stick and glue clothespins only on the bottom to hang up blocks, or use it vertically by gluing clothespins alternating on the left and right to hang up fat quarters, or postcards, or cool scrap fabrics, or notions or other cool stuff! Of course you can use a real yard stick if you wish, but since yards aren't very common in the metric world, we used a 90-95cm plain stick. We first measured 2cm from the top to drill a hole and then glued the first clothespin 5cm from the top and every 4cm thereafter. We used 20 clothespins found at a local arts store.

Just think of all the possibilities you could use this for!! A photo board...an advent calender...a recipe holder...a missing sock board in the laundry room...a chore chart...a note board...a mail center...What else can you think of? I'd like to hear from you!

Please leave a message and I will randomly pick a winner on Thursday, July 31, 2014 at 9am. You could be the lucky winner of ONE of the essential wanna haves pictured here. Only one entry per email address please.


I really appreciate you dropping by and reading my blog. I try to answer every one's post, because it means so much to me that you leave such beautiful comments. Unfortunately, there are still a few no-reply bloggers out there that I cannot reply to. I am very sorry for that. Please make sure you leave an email address so I can contact you if you are the winner! Don't forget to sign up for newsletters or follow via google or bloglovin'.

Now let's get back to sewing!
Karen