The Quilt Skipper

quilting makes me skip for joy

Jenny K Lyon

Quilting makes me skip for joy

Two More Tips: Lights and Blades

I’ve started on a new project and I’m in the Honeymoon Phase where nothing has gone wrong yet. So I’m sewing up a storm before my boys arrive for Christmas. As a result, I’ve got more tips:

A BETTER LAMP

Maybe it’s a bit pathetic that I am so excited about this, but I happened to be shopping in Office Depot for a few things for my office when I saw it (hallelujah chorus)…my wonderful old LED magnifier light!

My new "old" light

It was like a lost friend found. My old one bit the dust and it took me awhile to realize that the new one actually magnified too much-I got dizzy using it. I missed my old light-it was an important part of my sewing equipment! Office Depot had not carried it for a long time and I couldn’t find it anywhere.

How many light sources in this photo??

So I ran home to install it-it’s so wonderful to have ridiculous amounts of crisp, white light and that wonderful magnifying glass!

So here’s the run down on my geriatric lighting set up: the all important LED magnifying lamp, the great light on my Bernina, yet more light from my Ecolux lighting strip, the floor Ott lamp to illuminate what is coming out of my machine, and of course daylight from the window. It rocks my world to have great light to quilt with!

So as you can tell, I don’t think there’s such a thing as too much light.

SHARPENING YOUR ROTARY CUTTER BLADE AT HOME:
My friend Patty Martin recently posted a great tip from Patty’s Hands blog on how to sharpen your rotary cutter at home. It’s the simplest possible thing: take some regular baking tin foil, fold it up several times and run your rotary cutter through it a few times until it’s sharp! Brilliant.

Sharpening your rotary blade

I tried it on two blades: one that was just simply dull and one that had a nick from running over a pin or something. The one that was just dull sharpened right up! And the nicked one, well as you can imagine, the nick did not go away, but the rest of the blade sharpened up well. Who knew?

Hoping you get some time to hunker down in your sewing room during the holidays!

Comments

  1. Mine is literally falling apart, but will have to wait a while to buy a new one. Where did you buy the light strip? Hope you have a blessed Merry Christmas!

  2. Never can have too much light! Love that foil tip…..will try it in a few moments. Even if the nick is still there, it will be an improvement and I do have a “sharpener” kit for such which takes some of the burr off the nick until I totally replace it. Great post!!!!!!

  3. Regarding the light, if you have had Lasik surgery with mono vision take a quilted swatch with you and test it out in the store, after looking at Jenny’s light I bought one but ended up returning it. With the mono vision and the magnifying glass I could not focus on the stitching. Was a big surprise to me had not had anything like that show up before.

    • Sandy I have mono vision, but through contacts not surgery. I guess we’re all different-it works well for me and the mono vision doesn’t affect me. Great idea to take a quilted swatch with you-should have done that with the first lamp I purchased!

  4. Love the foil tip! I bought a blade sharpener many years ago when I got my first rotary cutter, hand operated with two sizes of sharpening stone. Works OK but this sounds much faster and easier! Thanks for sharing all these tips.

    • The stones didn’t seem to work that well for me but I probably was doing it wrong. Love the simplicity of the foil though!

  7. Okay, Jenny — you have fascinated me once again! Can you please tell me how you’re using the magnification OTT lamp? Just when you’re doing handwork like unpicking “oopses” and burying thread tails, or are you actually looking through the magnifier when you do FMQ? I tried the little magnification lens accessory from Bernina that attaches to the machine just above/in front of the needle and was not able to use it. But I am finding that I hunch my shoulders and “crouch” my back over the machine when I’m quilting because I want my face closer to what I’m stitching. I thought about raising my whole sewing cabinet, but the ergonomics experts say that will cause all kinds of shoulder, neck and back pain. I’m wondering if your bigger magnifier thingy makes it so you can see what you’re doing for FMQ while maintaining good posture and sitting up straight?

    • Hi Rebecca-you nailed it-when I use the magnifier, it keeps me from hanging my head down to see. Yes, I do my regular work through the magnifier: piecing (makes my 1/4″ seams so much more accurate), fmq, binding, etc. I too have the zillion $ set of Bernina magnifiers but I like the light/magnifier better.

      The larger magnified space is easier for my eyes to use than the smaller Bernina magnifiers. I still use the Bernina magnifiers for class since I can’t exactly lug that big ole lamp to class! I place it just as it is in the second photo. I guess this may not work for everyone, but it works well for me and it really does rock my world.

      Sometimes I don’t need the magnification and then I just move it above my sewing like I show in this photo: https://quiltskipper.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/dscn3049_edited-1.jpg Hope this works for you too.

  8. I had to laugh at your phrase “the honeymoon phase” and wince with recognition. All too soon come the disappointments and the oh, how did that happen? phases. Though I guess when quilting a UFO is the equivalent of a divorce.

    • LOL!! “Quilting a UFO is the equivalent of a divorce”! Yes, I am sure I will run into some major problem with this quilt and the honeymoon will be over. Nonetheless, I have “relationships” with my quilts, some good, some bad.

  10. Just tried the foil tip on a blade which had been trimming a paper pieced project. Wow, what a wonderful tip. I may have to share it on my blog!