Garment Labels

I'm soliciting your help. I won 1st prize on Pattern Review for the holiday/gift sewing contest and my prize is 250 labels from ClothingLabels4U ~ thanks Lisa for such a generous prize! I'm super excited to finally have labels to put into my garments, but I'm stumped as to what I want them to say and look like.

So here is where you can help. Will you pretty please email me a picture of your sewing label(s)? I need some inspiration on how I'd like them to look and I'm not even sure what I want them to say. In a perfect world, I'd love something I can use in everything I sew (myself, the kids, and anything I gift), but I'm not sure I can figure wording that would work well for this (you know chic enough for me, yet cool enough for my kids). I made this mock up to get me started, but obviously this would be for me only. I might put a black border around it too.

If you wouldn't mind sharing your label with me, please zap me an email. Also, what size are your labels? Are you happy with that size? My labels can be as big as 2"x1", but that seems awfully big to me.

Kai Scissors Rock!

Okay just a quickie post to declare to the world I LOVE my new Kai scissors! They cut so beautifully - I can't even describe it, so smooth and perfect! So my best advice is, next time you need new scissors, just pop on over to Kai Scissors and treat yourself ~ after all you deserve it.

*Disclaimer* I have no affiliation with Kai Scissors, just a happy customer! :-)

P.S. I hope I get the Kai pinking sheers for my birthday next week, I dropped a hint so keeping my fingers crossed (or at least some birthday $$ to buy myself a pair). :-)

I got mail!

First off, thank you for your kind responses on the "homemade" topic - I appreciate all your insight!

Well nothing perks a girl up more than a good mail today! Today I hit the mother load with my new Ottobre Woman, new March Burda WOF, and a journal from Ottobre that was sent to me as a gift from the staff for sending in photos of garments I've made (they are such a top notch company, if only every company was as wonderful as they are!).


Yesterday I went to the big Sewing Expo in Puyallup, Washington. I had a pretty fun time, tho I feel like year after year it's the same old stuff and there is lots of quilting and machine embroidery stuff which isn't really what I'm interested in. I did get to attend Sandra Betzina's seminar on unlined jackets. It was fun and she's always a hoot to listen to - she's just so down to earth and practical! I also met a fellow PR member Diane E. She's from California and came to the show to help Sandra in her booth at the show (they are friends and I'm jealous!). Diane is so fun and I wish I would have had more time to chat with her. I also bumped into another PR member Cathy - we shopped together in Portland this past fall. It was fun to see her again and hopefully we'll have another shopping adventure in Portland fairly soon.

I'm so proud of myself too because the only thing I bought at the whole show was a set of Kai scissors. They are awesome and I got the whole set for $45 (I think that was a pretty good deal). I'm excited to finally have curved tip ones to cut jump threads when I embroider stuff. The other two pairs will be very useful too of course.

I had big plans of sewing today, but instead we went to town to run errands and were gone far too long. It's now time to get dinner started, so maybe after dinner I'll get myself in gear for what I will do tomorrow. Only 12 days until I leave for the big LA Pattern Review weekend and I still have things to make - ugg, why do I leave things to the last minute????

Help me pick a garment steamer

For a while now, I've wanted to buy a steamer for my sewing studio. It got some cash for Christmas, so now is the perfect opportunity to treat myself. I noticed in the recent Hancock Fabrics ad that they had the Homemedics Commercial Steamer on sale for $49.99 - thinking the word "commercial" equals quality, I stopped by and picked one up. Well today I finally took it out of the box and I'm less than impressed. It seems like it should be sturdier than it is, so I started snooping around PR and the net and found some other steamers that are probably a better investment than the one I purchased. I steamed the cuffs of my McCalls puffy sleeve blouse and it worked pretty good, but I have no experience with a steamer, so I don't know if it actually did a good job or not.

So give me your opinion - do you have a steamer? If so, which one? Do you have the one I purchased? If so, do you like it? I am now thinking of returning the steamer (the lady at Hancock's told me I had 60 days to decide if I didn't like it) and buying the Jiffy J-2000 from Costco, but they also have another one on the Costco website too called SteamFast Professional Steamer. They both are close in price so it's not at all about the price, it's about the quality. I want something that I will have for the long haul. I'm not even sure how often I'll use it, but it makes no sense to buy a piece of junk for $50 that I'm going to have to replace.

Looking forward to hearing some opinions on the issue, so please don't be shy!