My thread catcher

A post at longarm quilting forums referenced these little thread catchers and she had made up several for herself.   One for her car, one to sit by  her hand sewing chair...  She said they only take about 15 minutes to make and that sounded like the perfect project that I could work in this morning.
The original blog post is found @ Needling Things as well as her complete instructions.   I knew immediately that this would make the perfect replacement for the coffee filter I have taped to the top of my longarm head to hold all those snips of thread from starts and stops while quilting.   With a 12' table... and your machinehead being anywhere on that table makes it inconvenient to get to a stationary trash can.  Wouldn't these buttons be cute on mine?


I placed 2 fabrics right sides together and cut a 12" square.   From there, I did not make a paper pattern and merely used my ruler to cut 2 60* cuts.


You then stitch around all 3 sides leaving a 3" opening.  Clip your points to reduce bulk, turn.  Use a needle to try to get that point as tight as possible.  Press, edgestitch which will also close off that open area.

Take one side, match the points.  Then fold back to the opposite edge to get the halfway mark.  Pin that spot.   Do this for all three sides.   You will then stitch on the same stitching lines.  Backstitch your start and stops to re-inforce and clip threads.   (note in my pic I had the fabrics opposite and realized before I stitched.  I wanted the bolder print to be on the outside)


I chose no buttons at this time, want it light as possible anyway.  I wanted to place one of those nickel sized magnets inside the thread catcher and another on my machine head to hold in place.   But some little boy had "borrowed" all my magnets...   so blue painters tape to the rescue.



I love it!   Looks so much nicer than my paper coffee filter.   I may add some light buttons someday.   I'm thinking a dot of glue to hold the fabric points back would work well too and maybe a just a sticky "gemstone" would be cute too.  Speaking of magnets, here a pic of those magnets holding my screwdriver near my fingertips as well.   Gotta keep that handy too.


Fast, fun and functional.



Comments

Nancy said…
Handy and cute... a cheerful piece on the machine. Way better than coffee filters I agree!