Sunday 22 March 2015

Tool (mis)use

I'm almost ashamed to admit what I did with my precious quilting tool this morning.  I hunted everywhere for my exacto knife, and I could not find it. I have no idea where I put it after I used it last time (I know exactly where I thought I put it, where I should have put it).  But I really wanted to get the carpet pulled up in the spare room today, so I can get the remnants out for garbage in the morning.  We only have pickup every two weeks, so I've been planning this carefully.

So, what does a quilter do when she can't find an exacto knife to cut the carpet?  Brace yourself ... I used my rotary cutter.  I did switch the blade out for a used one (designated for cutting paper now) before I started. And even so, it cut through that carpet like butter.  Hopefully the quilt police won't be knocking on my door, for the misuse of quilting tools.

And now that step is done, I just have to paint a section of the wall (which was behind my cutting table) and put down the new flooring. Then I might actually be able to clear out a bigger section of my new sewing room and get everything organized in there.

On the other hand, in sewing news, I picked up a yard of fabric yesterday, which I hoped to use to finish my current quilt. I am running low on whites and in order to keep the last 3 blocks scrappy I needed a bit more. Unfortunately, it was the wrong white - despite my best efforts at matching.  I knew it was iffy when I bought it, but I had to try.  So, 1 yard into my stash this week. And nothing out, because I haven't finished any of my current projects yet.

Stash totals for the year:
81.5 yards in
72.25 yards out
Total: 9 1/4 yards in

Drop by Judy's blog to see how everyone else is doing this week.

5 comments:

  1. We've all been there. I've occasionally had to donate my sewing scissors to a cause - and then have them replaced! Good news, the carpet is gone.

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  2. We often use non-quilting tools in the quilting process, so why not the other way around? I confess that I've used my rotary cutter/mat and ruler to cut shelf-liners ...

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  3. As long as it worked, no harm done! I tend to sharpen my rotary blades myself, So as long as there are no major nicks in the blades, I've used them on everything from paper to cutting the tape off boxes. I do usually always swap them out after I use them on something other than fabric.

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  4. Harbor Freight sells replacement carpet cutter blades that are the same size as 45mm rotary cutter blades -- so it makes sense that it worked. I would've probably done the same thing.

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  5. I always said that quilters are smart people and you proved that you can think outside the box. Glad you got that nasty job done and now on to more fun things.

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