Fibermania

News Flash!!

Longer Bigger Cheaper!

Not a Male Enhancement Joke!

Another source for teflon pressing sheets has just reduced their prices. http://www.valeriehearder.com/supplies.htm

And now a bit of an explanation about the pressing sheets vs parchment paper. First read this.

I used the parchment paper in my class on Saturday and it worked great for the Bad Wonder-Under. We peeled off the fusible and laid it on our fabric, covered it with the parchment paper and fused on the stuff. Then it peeled off beautifully, just like good Wonder-Under paper should be doing.

However, when we worked all day with the same piece of parchment paper, it got dried and crinkly and was pretty much more trouble than it was worth. The wrinkles transfer to the fabric and then it isn't so nice.

Now, to the uninformed a bit of an explanation: We are working with fused fabric and no base fabric. We are cutting the fused fabrics and overlapping edges to form seams. The whole quilt top is made this way and there is NO BASE FABRIC AT ALL. It is all fused onto the release paper or in this case, the parchment paper.

Sure parchment paper is cheap. But teflon sheets are PERMANENT. They will outlast us, the dinosaurs and the cockroaches. They stay smooth and release the fusible perfectly forever.

Now that I have two entire bolts of the bad stuff, and still have not received the promised good stuff from the company, I am set to keep the bad stuff and just use the teflon sheets.

In the meantime I have decided

this is a good thing.

You may have noticed that I save everything, including the paper I peel off when I fuse. It is rolled up everywhere I can hoard it. Recently I have been bringing it to my workshops, just in case, and it was all put to use.

Now there is OPEN SPACE where it used to be stashed. With the advent of the Bad W-U, I now have LEARNED to throw out the paper. Amazing!

Since the appearance of the bad W-U, I have begun hoarding many varieties of teflon sheets, which I purchased to bring to my workshops for my students to use, just in case, I have also found that in their enthusiasm and excitement, they have inadvertently sliced right through the teflon sheets.

All of them have at least one large swipe of a slice.

From now on, I am selling them to the students, and saving myself the heartbreak of discovering the ruined sheets when I pack up.