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Nancy Prince |
Keeping You in Stitches |
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Are You Houston Bound? This is Festival time of the year and I know many of you are excited about your trip to Houston in a few weeks. If you are flying and will need transportation from the airport, I have a little something I would like to share with you. For those of you that have previously been to Festival, you most likely took one of the shuttles (there are several) from the airport to the hotels near the convention center. Of course if you are at the Hilton, Hyatt or Four Seasons the shuttle stops at a zillion hotels before it gets to where you want to go - ask me how I know that. Several years ago I was in a hurry to get from my last workshop to the airport, and I didn't have time to take the shuttle so I called a limousine service. His price to me was very reasonable, and I would like to share his information with you. If there are 3 of you arriving together, Pete will pick you up at the airport and take you to your hotel near the convention center for $20 each. He arrives in a very nice town car and there is plenty of room in the trunk for all your stuff. The $20/person is roughly the same price as the shuttle and you don't have all the stops. If you are coming in by yourself, then you would have to call for a quote. If you are interested, please calls Pete's Limousine Service at 281-788-7090 and also email him at Pete's Limo. I have already told him I was going to put this information in my newsletter so if you mention my name, he will know that you are going to Festival. I just hate taking the shuttle with all the stops and thought you might be interested in another mode of transportation. So give Pete a call. If you are not going to Houston but know of some that is, then please forward this email to them. One of the most frequently asked questions I get outside of thread painting is what type of paint do I use to paint my fabrics with. So I thought a few painting tips might be in order. What type of fabric paints do I use and where can you buy them? I use Setacolor fabric paints by Pebeo. Setacolor can be purchased at http://www.dharmatrading.com/ or http://www.prochemical.com/ . The paints are transparent - the only opaque paint you might need is white. Pro Chemical offers a start up kit for around $30. These paints come concentrated and are mixed with water before use. They are beautiful, easy to work with and clean up is a breeze - a little water to clean with and you are done!!. Heat set with an iron or dryer. I use a sea sponge or paint brush to apply the paint. How did I learn to paint fabric? I started painting my own fabric about 7 years ago and at that time I purchased Mickey Lawler's book SkyDyes. It is a terrific look and I learned all the basics I needed from her book. By trial and error (and a lot of that) I discovered a few tricks of my own, but for basics, hers is the best. What type of fabric do you paint on and where do you purchase it? I purchase a prepared for dying cotton fabric from http://www.testfabrics.com . The fabric is a bleached mercerized combed broadcloth cotton, #419. Fabric can be purchased by the yard or multiple yards. As a second alternative, purchase white photo transfer fabric. Wash it first to remove the sizing and any chemicals in the fabric. You need a cotton fabric with a high thread count to paint on. Where is the best place to purchase the sea sponges to paint with? The most economical is at Home Depot in the painting department. My area Home Depot has a bag of various types and sizes of sea sponges. Each sponge is different, offering a variety of different "looks" when painted on the fabric. The last time I bought a bag there, it was less than $5. The sponge paint brushes can be purchased here also. They work great and are very inexpensive. What'sNew?Online Video Workshop - Machine Setup for Free-Motion - The 2nd video is now online for an introductory offer of $17.50. This 15 minute video will go over the steps necessary to successfully set up your machine for free-motion. This informative video showcases how to adjust the top and bobbin tension to keep the pesky bobbin thread from rearing its ugly head, the type of foot to use, the thread type for the bobbin case and top spindle and dropping the feed dogs. Today specialty threads abound so it is more important than ever to know how to adjust your machine to compensate for all the different thread weights. Knowing a few simple tips just might avoid an unnecessary trip to your machine shop for service. Want to see a snippet of the video before you buy? Click here and then click on the "Video Preview" link and preview a mini video lesson. So give it a go!! Remember that the video requires a Flash player to play the video. You most likely have a Flash player installed and may not know it. If there is an indication you don't have a Flash player, scroll down underneath the video and there is a "Click here" where you can download the Flash player for free. Stitches with Attitude! - Bernina posted on its blog last week - www.berninausablog.com - a short snippet (just photos, no video - darn) on the Stitches with Attitude video. Once on the site, locate Recent Posts in the right hand column and click on Nancy Prince - Stitches with Attitude. Yahoo!! Don't you hate it when you are in the middle of something and are suddenly faced with an unexpected math challenge, like converting degrees Celsius to Fahrenheit; square inches to square yards; inches to millimeters or US dollars to Euros? Well, here are a couple of helpful sites to quickly handle most of those challenges http://www.onlinecoversion.com/ and www.convert-me.com/en Now when your friend is calling from Millionaire to find out many bushels in a peck you can tell her ".25 and I am 100% sure". I Leave You with This...
I need to ask you all a favor. I am trying to build my email list and would like to ask those of you that can to please email my newsletter to your friends or groups that you think might be interested. Some of you have already done that and I am immensely grateful. I know that building a quality email list takes a bit of time, but if you could help out, I would really appreciate it. Thanks for spending some time today with me. "See" you online. Till the next newsletter. Happy thread painting!! Keeping you in stitches,
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Volume 1 Issue 5 What's In This Issue?
Upcoming teaching events -
Palmetto Quilt Guild October 16-18
International Quilt Festival October 26- 31
Quilters Unlimited November 18-20
I would love to hear your feedback on the Newsletter or the new website. |
