It’s August and some kids are back to school and others will be heading back in September. At any rate, the stores have all their “back to school” sales on. Do you take advantage of these sales for your sewing room?
I do. Here are some of the products I use in my sewing room and some are suggestions from other bloggers and quilters.

- A flannel back tablecloth is great for a design wall … especially if I’m going sewing somewhere besides in my home.
- Hair clips are great for clipping labels onto fabric
- Spray bottle for water (I always use a dry iron … and I spray the fabric if I want steam)
- Shelf liner
- will hold your sewing machine foot in place
- add it to the back of pincushions to prevent them from slipping around
- in a pinch, you can use a couple of pieces (3″x 3″) to place under your hands when you free motion quilt
- Put a small square between your small rulers and your fabric – it’ll prevent the ruler from shifting
- Hair ties – place them around the thread and the bobbin and you know which bobbin goes with which thread … plus it keeps the thread from unwinding
These are the small hair ties … they are cloth covered elastics. You can see in the picture how small they are. When my thread and bobbins are in the drawer, it’s super easy to figure out which bobbin goes with which spool of thread. Plus there isn’t miles of thread all over!

Notebook with grid lines … for planning that next quilt and Pencil crayons to colour your quilt

Mechanical pencils for fine lines (on the back of HST) or to mark the centre of a block

Elmer’s School Glue … I use this a LOT … dilute it 4 parts water to 1 part glue and it’s perfect for gluing down binding or whatever needs to stay in place.

Binder clips – they are perfect to supplement your smaller clips … great when you have a large number of pieces or ???
Flag post-its, or just plain post-it notes are perfect for short-term labels.
Disappearing Elmer’s Glue Stick. These have MANY uses. I often use it to pre-baste my binding. Then when I get to the sewing machine, binding is done in a flash.

Coloured Sharpies … OK … confession here … these are great for colouring that white thread that is showing, or for outlining shapes (as per Helen Godden).

Painters tape. I use it to label things and to quickly mark my sewing lines when quilting.

These “Stained” Sharpie markers are fantastic for quilt labels, or anything you want to permanently mark.

I was Featured



Jennifer, from Inquiring Quilter, Susan from Quilt Fabrication, Andree from Quilting & Learning and Denise from A Quiltery all featured my Turkey that I shared last week.

Oh Dear … Something New to Start
Denise at A Quiltery is starting “Floral Fusion” a Sew Along with new blocks each Monday. This promises to be beautiful!!! Hurry and get this week’s block while it’s still free! (See HERE).

Here’s the start of my Block 1. I’m using Island Batik fabrics. The background is from a stash-builder roll and the flower and future leaves are from my scraps. This should decrease my scraps … a little!

Don’t Forget!

Here is my Affiliate link: https://glnk.io/mzmmj/quiltinggail If you order over $50 from Missouri Star, you will get 20% off your order and I may receive a small commission. Thank you for your support!
One who sleeps under a quilt is covered by LOVE!
Happy Quilting!
Gail
Linking to:
- Midweek Makers @ QuiltFabrication
- Wednesday Wait Loss @ Inquiring Quilter
- Andrée / Free Motion Mavericks @ Quilting & Learning – What a combo!
- Put your Foot Down @ A Quiltery
- Finished or Not Friday @ Alycia Quilts
- Off the Wall Friday @ Creations – Quilts, Art, Whatever
- TGIFF @ Create with Claudia
Hi Gail, that’s a very useful post. I also have lots of the products you mention, except for those tiny hair elastics. I’ll pick some up next time. I also buy trays from the $ store to keep things together on my desk because they are easily moved when I need access to my large mat under the trays!
Thanks for linking up to Free Motion Mavericks!
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Thanks, Andree! I, too have trays from the $ store … I forgot to mention them!!! Thank you for hosting Free Motion Mavericks!
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Timely post! Thanks for sharing on my weekly show and tell, Wednesday Wait Loss.
https://www.inquiringquilter.com/questions/2024/08/14/wednesday-wait-loss-393
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You’re welcome, Jennifer!
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Your start to Floral Fusion looks really pretty. I was tempted but I’m sticking to my guns and not starting anything new right now. I’ll enjoy watching your progress. As for back-to-school supplies, I like the small pencil boxes/containers for holding sewing supplies. The larger ones are great for holding my rotary cutter, snips, pencil, thread, etc for heading to retreat safely. Thanks for the tips!
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Thanks, Sue!! Good for you, resisting another tempting project!!! And thanks for the additional ideas for quilting supplies!
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Love that quilt so much!
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Thanks, Claudia!
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Thanks for sharing your Dollar Tree sewing tips!
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You are welcome, Pat!
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I always love the Back to school Sales and you’ve listed some great ideas for using some!!! The new floral blocks is really pretty!
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I’m excited to see where the floral blocks go!!! I’m loving it so far! And it was so quick and easy to do!
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I never considered that back to school was good for back to quilting supplies too. You have some great suggestions.
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Thanks, Kate! I like to buy things when they are the least expensive!
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I use disposable cutting mats to cut out templates
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Thats a fabulous idea!!! Thank you!
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