Awesome tools and a chuckle for Thursday!

Thursday! Last night I started putting blocks together for my Oklahoma Beauty quilt. That's going to be a big, big project.I have several tools I use that make my stitching life so much easier and thought that today I would share with you! I use them all the time and just love, love, love them! The first one is called a Strip Stick. It is a fabric covered "stick" that is curved on one side and flat on the other. Its covered with a fabric sleeve. Here's a picture:

You just lay anything with a straight seam on top of the curved edge and press. You get a PERFECT press with no distortion. There is no annoying pleat on the front of the block or strip set.You also don't affect the adjoining seams because the curve keeps them out of the way of the iron. It's simple but brilliant! You can watch a demo and find them for sale HERE. There are 3 sizes and I use the middle size.

Another tool I use all the time is a porcupine quill! It is super strong and very sharp on one end and is cut at an angle at the other end as you can see in the photo. The angled end is perfect for paper piecing. You can just run that end along the stitched seams and the paper just comes right off. The sharp end is perfect for guiding things through the machine presser foot. I can tell you for sure that I would hate to have a bunch of these embedded in my skin! I got mine at a quilt show a long, long time ago. I found someone on Etsy that does jewelry from these quills so I wrote them to see if I could buy some from them but they never responded. My point is that, if you have a chance to buy one, grab it! You will thank me!

Then I had to share this with you. I found this on Pinterest:

I couldn't determine who did it but it perfectly fits me and I'll bet you too! Well, have a happy Thursday! XO and cheery wave from Bev