Tag: Quilting

Where to find supplies in person now that Joann’s is gone?

May 27, 2025

For the past two days, I’ve been restitching straps and reinforcing stress points on some of the protective gear used by hubs and other TR members out in the field. A big operation closed down recently and all the equipment has come back to the Atlanta warehouse. Hubs sent 120 pounds of chaps out to the laundry and he’s been inspecting each pair to see what repairs need to be made. Last night, I noticed I needed to pick up another small spool of orange Coats & Clark thread. Normally, I would head to Joann.

Where to buy it locally now that Joann’s is gone? Good question. I started thinking about the items I routinely picked up at Joann’s and wondered if I could find them at Hobby Lobby, Michael’s or Wal-Mart? Here’s a quick run-down of what I can find at which store:

Hobby Lobby – Kona cotton + other quilting cotton fabrics, Pellon interfacing, Warm & Natural batting, Fiskars mats & cutting tools, Schmetz needles, and my favorite budget-friendly SewOlogy 50/2 cotton piecing thread on the cross-wound spool (good alternative to Aurifil). Their ribbon & trim selection is pretty good, as well.

Michaels – Coats & Clark thread, Singer sewing machines

Wal-Mart – Waverly precut fabrics, Pellon interfacing & Nature’s Touch quilt batting, some Fiskarts mats & cutting tools, Schmetz needles, Brother and Singer sewing machines, best everyday prices I’ve found on pillow inserts and PolyFil stuffing.

Worth noting: Michaels and Wal-Mart stores near me are redoing their sewing & quilting product assortments. Some Michael’s stores now offer fabric by the yard and feature a sewing machine sales/education center in-store. Wal-Mart may still carry some Coats & Clark thread, but it’s been shifting over to a store brand. Not impressed with it or Hobby Lobby’s store-brand polyester thread. Actually, my favorite polyester sewing thread is Mettler’s Metrosene, but it’s only available at an area sewing machine dealer.

FWIW, Sadie & I made our last visit to the Kennesaw Joann’s store yesterday. It was surreal seeing a practically empty store. We did our usual lap and said our final good-bye.

Learn new things

May 25, 2025
My second attempt at creating an SVG file. Thinned the cut line to .25 and 3rd time was perfect (no excess left on the mat)

This week I did two things on my retirement “to-do” list.

Learn how to create an SVG file from a paper pattern/template. My guild makes little teddies for the local children’s hospital. I knew this was something that I could do faster on my Cricut if I had an SVG file. No one in the guild had created one. Perfect project while waiting on the HVAC company to service and repair our a/c units on Tuesday. It took three tries and a few choice words, but I now have a SVG file that works and takes less than 2 minutes to cut both parts of the teddy bear.

Take a longarm certification class from a local quilt shop. Said shop is the only one in the area that allows folks to rent time on their longarm machines. A four-hour “certification” class is required prior to renting time. I spent 4 hours standing on a concrete floor while the instructor lectured about proper quilt preparation and introduced us to the different machines. Three of the students already had longarm machines at home, so the instructor geared most of the class towards them. I got about 20 minutes of hands-on time total across all 3 machines. I was a little disappointed, but with the way the rental process works, the instructor (or another employee) will actually load the quilt and set everything up for me. All I’ll do is hand guided E2E quilting following a pantograph. We are not allowed to use the Pro Stitcher (boo-hiss!) It’s very different guiding a 40-60 pound longarm machine head versus moving the quilt to FMQ on my domestic machine.

E2E meander following a pantograph using a HandiQuilter Amara 20 longarm machine.

I did learn 3 things: (1) A stitch regulator is a game changer for me, (2) I do not want my own longarm and (3) I’ll still be quilting by checkbook for specialty computerized quilting designs and really large quilts.

After yesterday, my personal preference is still for a sit-down machine where I maneuver the quilt. The photo above shows improved stitching after only 20 minutes, so I’m not going to rule out getting used to a long-arm. The benefits of using a longarm include a much faster turnaround time and no need to baste the quilt.

I’ll buy a block of 10 hours machine rental time and what happens. If nothing else, I should be able to finish 5-7 lap size quilts in that amount of time. At the going rate of 2.5 cents per square inch, it would cost me $75-$100 per quilt to send each one out. That’s $375-$750 versus $180 for a block of 10 hours.

And I have a stack of quilt tops needing to get finished.

Officially in summer mode

May 18, 2025

Cue the Pomp & Circumstance music.

This past week was a whirlwind of activities culminating with my youngest niece’s high school graduation on Friday night. Making it possible for my 80+ year old parents to see her graduate in person was totally worth all the four hours of driving I had to do in ATL traffic. Congrats to my niece and best of luck as she moves on to the next adventure – college.

Thank you to a kind neighbor who let me borrow a stadium seat. I highly recommend investing in one if you’ll be sitting in the bleachers during this busy graduation season and the venue doesn’t offer stadium seat rentals.

Summer mode is now officially engaged!

Time for quilting, travel, reading and a little cross-stitching.

And a pedicure.