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Have You Seen This?
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| If regular sewing scissors cause your hands to hurt when cutting material, you might want to consider looking into electric scissors. With this sewing product, every cutting job will be a breeze once you get used to using them. Should you purchase scissors of this kind, spend a few minutes and practice cutting on inexpensive material before you jump on that duponi silk! | |
| I really like this wall organizer and every sewing room should have something like it. If you're a handy kind of gal (or guy) you could make your own. I know Lowes and Home Depot sell pegboard; however, I believe it's still sold in fairly large panels. So, take the excess and put some up in your laundry room, garage or the kids rooms. Pegboard is awesome for holding and organizing all kinds of things! | |
| Here's another tool quilters and crafters should have in their toolbox. I like this version because sales of it benefit breast cancer research. |
Fiskars has released a new designer collection of sewing and quilting tools. If you like lavender and purple, you'll love these new sewing products. Look for the Donna Dewberry Collection in retail stores. (I'm having to hold myself back on buying these. I really love the colors, just look at my website!)
Mundial, Inc. has created a set of pink scissors being marketed as their Special Edition Quilters' Duo and a portion of the purchase price goes to help fund cancer research. (If they cut fabric, they aren't just for quilters!) The package includes an 8-1/2" long quilting shears for heavier fabrics and a 5-1/2" long fine quilting scissors. Both have soft handles and cushioned enlarged finger bows for hand comfort. Look for this special edition sewing product at sewing specialty stores.
If you do machine embroidery, you know how much of a pain in the backside it is to keep the threads from unwinding, whether in a drawer or on a spool stand. The answer? Thread Nets. Stretchable plastic mesh that is available by the yard so you can cut it to the length of your spool. Note: If you go looking on the web for mesh threads or thread nets, you'll get all kinds of results, mostly for athletic and fishing nets! Anyway, these are out there and at stores where machine embroidery supplies are sold.
Whoa! I'm embarrased to say I missed this bit of news when it first appeared I and found out by chance from speaking with a fellow machine embroidery enthusiast who happens to be a Wal-Mart employee. She mentioned Wal-Mart is phasing out fabrics from their stores. Apparantly this is old news, but since I just found out, I figure maybe some others have not heard about it either. So, I did some research and found it mentioned on a couple of sewing sites, a home and garden site (really) and then found a great article written back in December of 2006 by Anita French, a writer with The Morning News a news source for readers in Northwest Arkansas.
From the article, "Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is planning to close the fabric departments at 80 percent of its 3,000 stores next year (i.e. 2007), according to an analyst with BB&T Capital Markets."
Instead of cutting fabrics for us, they will be cutting fabrics from us. However, according to a Wal-Mart spokesperson, it's not true. Linda Blakely with Wal-Mart is quoted in this article as saying, "We will continue to cut fabrics in our stores, moving forward."
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wal-Mart has already cut fabrics completely from several of their stores and from some items I've read, they don't intend to include fabric departments in any new stores they build. Apparantly, they intend to offer more seasonal craft type items (which might or might not include fabrics).
I buy cotton fabric occaisonally from Wal-Mart, but am aware that many people do so regularly either because of price (it is definately affordable) and/or because there is no other place to purchase fabric in their towns. This news definately has me dismayed as it leaves very few options for many people. JoAnne Fabrics and Hancock Fabrics stores must be very excited. A lot of them closed down over the years when Wal-Mart stores opened and took their customers. It looks like they might be getting them back.
Anyway, I don't know if Wal-Mart's corporate offices will listen, but all the articles I've read suggest telling them how you feel about their "corporate decision".
- Call them at 1-800-925-6278 and keep pushing buttons until you get a live person,
- write them at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Bentonville, AR 72716, or
- send them an e-mail through their website at www.walmartstores.com
If you are interested in the full article referenced above, go to http://www.nwaonline.com/articles/2006/12/05/business/120506wmfabrics.txt
