Sunday, May 04, 2008

Take-away


For those of you who have seen me at the spring shows, you will know why this post has everything to do with pizza box storage.  For those of you who haven't seen me at a show this spring, what are you thinking?!  :-) You have one last shot - the North Shore show in just under two weeks.


I've had a number of you ask why I chose pizza boxes, so I thought of my top five reasons to have them, and my top five reasons not to use them.

Top five reasons:
  1. Recyclable
  2. Stackable/non-crushable
  3. Lightweight, especially when compared to plastic bins
  4. When  not in use, they fold flat and take up very little space
  5. Cheap!  You can pick up around 50 of them for less than $25 at most restaurant supply stores.  I prefer Boelter because it is near my house.
Top five reasons not to use cardboard boxes:
  1. My cause you to be more hungry than usual while quilting
  2. If you don't buy clean ones from the restaurant supply company, they will smell like pizza, as well as your fabric
  3. They're not recommended for use in homes with teenage boys who will be disappointed they don't include pizza
  4. They are not waterproof
  5. Unlike their shipping-box cousins, they do not make comfortable furniture when used in bulk
There are of course many other reasons to use pizza boxes in which to store fabric.  I just chose my top five.  You should be able to fit approximately 3 yards of fabric in a personal-pan-sized box, or 6 yards of fabric in a standard large.  Most restaurant supply companies will also offer other sizes, but I have found that for gift giving and stash exchanges, the small size works best, whereas for the large size works best for quilt-camp weekend projects and stash management. You can also store charm packs and jelly rolls in most pizza boxes if you buy the deep-dish variety.  This will help keep your pinking-sheared-edges from linting all over everything. And of course as always, if you'd like to see the pizza boxes in action, come see me at my last spring show!

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Details, details, details

It really all is in the detail! Despite traveling with a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old which leaves very little time for looking at details, I found some wonderful tidbits throughout England.

English Hand-painted buttons


12th century Skipton Castle stone carving


York Minster tile


Gladstone Pottery paint samples

I have to take the time to enjoy small details in my next quilt.

Speaking of details, we finally updated the webshop to reflect the sale price of our inventory. All fabric is now $6 or less. Look for an update in our other categories soon.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Food on fabric makes you fat

The fabric trend of licensing popular pop culture icons has gone to extremes to find something new to print on fabric. Comign out in the next year, we have to add PEZ Candy as "food" to look for on fabric.