School supplies for quilting
 

I was shopping today and noticed all the school supplies featured. As a retired special education teacher, I still love shopping for them (I used to stock my classroom with them for my students.). It started me thinking; what school supplies do you use in quilting. I bought three ring binders to hold quilting pattern directions such as Bonnie Hunter mysteries. Also got some sheet protectors, mechanical pencils for applique tracing and binder clips to use when sandwiching small quilts.
So tell us. What do you stock up on this time of year?
Terry

For me it was the glue sticks - Staples/Office Depot had them 8 for $1.00 a week ago. And I bought a set of the Crayola Washable markers to try for marking a quilt.
I also bought a composition book $.50 to start using for the quilts I personally design - hope I can remember to take a picture of the quilt when it is done. Usually I think of the picture after it has been given away.

Luckily my DD is an elementary teacher and I get to go with her to buy school supplies. Usually there is a sale on the Elmer's liquid white school glue, but this year it was the stick glue. Not a big deal because I didn't need it but my DD found it was much cheaper to buy it by the gallon from Walmart. The school supply hunt seems to run in my blood, once I was telling my mom how I loved the shopping for school supplies and she said she still loved it even though she had no one to shop for anymore. She said she didn't know what a junky she was until we had all left home and she found a drawer with 10 packages of paper, a couple boxes of pencils and a few pechees. She said she couldn't resist looking at the adds and letting my sister know where the best sales were.

Mechanical pencils. White gum erasers. Crayola Ultra Clean markers & crayons (for marking quilts). Drawing pads for quilt designs. Envelopes and/or sandwich bags to store applique pattern pieces. Sharpies so I can darken any patterns enough to see through to trace applique design onto my background fabric for needle turn. Also, this year I'm getting some binder rings because I saw a tutorial online by Heather Thomas, National Quilter's Circle, where she made a sampler "book" of different quilting fillers & motifs to refer to herself or share with clients. She punched grommets in the fabric & then attached the different "pages" of the quilted fabric together with binder rings. So clever! Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnAriXmGjPA

Plus, sometimes I just get a few fun things either to work on my designs or to use for fun in my Fiber Research journal. I like making it kinda like a scrapbook type style so sometimes I find fun cardstock, stickers, stencils, stamps or whatnot just to play.

Thanks for posting this thread! I'm sure we'll get all kinds of great ideas from it!

Glue sticks and sheet protectors.

I told daughter to get me my yearly glue stick stash and she said dont bother, her hubby has 60 of them and will share before they dry up. woo hoo, I got 10 for free this year....such a deal

I can't say I stock up, but some of the school supplies I do use include:
3 ring binders
Sheet protectors
Spiral notebooks
Graph Paper - lots of graph paper
Pencils
Glue Sticks
Washable markers
Permanent markers
Plastic Pencil Boxes

Sheet protectors, glue sticks, and paper to copy free patterns.

I love the grid composition books that WM carries. For some reason they don't seem to be very popular with students, so I stock up at the end of the season. Even at full price, they are less than $1

I love index cards. The lines are a scant 1/4" apart on the ones that I find in the local office supply stores. Following are some of the ways that I use them:

1. check needle placement against the 1/4" seam mark on my sewing machine
2. check 1/4" seam allowance--particularly if I'm doing a technique that requires ironing a 1/4" seam allowance.
3. use as a straight edge to mark the diagonal on a square for making 1/2 square triangles.
4. use to mark the diagonal when joining binding strips--they're thin enough and flexible enough that you can pin the binding pieces together using those flower pins, lay your index card over them and then use whatever marking tool you prefer (I like a sliver of soap for darks and the purple air-disappearing ink for lights). The card doesn't wobble over the pins like a ruler will, and its edge is sturdy enough to make a nice straight line when marking.
5. cut them into smaller pieces to use as labels

Rob

I always buy a new pencil box - this year I put all my different types of pins in the pencil box. (Each kind is in a different pill bottle). Last year I gathered all my thimbles and put them in a box. I love pencil boxes!

Thanks to Sharon Schamber, washable school liquid glue is on my list.

I buy a lot of packages of printer paper, sheet protectors, and the colored folders. I use a lot of those. I think the glue sticks and washable glue are too inexpensive at regular price to stock up much. I bought 300 packages of Crayola Crayons when they were .10 a pack of 24! at Walmart a long time ago. I have given out new packages of crayons to trick or treaters for years. LOL

I don't use school supplies that much but my husband is a draftsman and I do use drafting paper for pattern tracing and his old colored pencils and drafting curves for drawing. Now everything is computerized but even that has its pluses. He can make me graph paper with any size squares I want.

I use hard plastic pencil cases (about 6x8) to hold small scissors, containers of pins, pencils, pens, markers and a smaller soft plastic pencil case that holds two of my rotary cutters and a few seam rippers...I am still using the first one I ever bought but have 4 or 5 more just for backups...also they have hard plastic pencils cases that snap and have a small pull out drawer that I also use for rotary cutters. And of course graft paper or spiral notebooks for pattern making and notes(I just bought 10 at 17 cents each), crayons, bottles of glue, glue sticks, colored pencils, pencils and markers. I always stock up at before school bargain prices. I keep a tote just for school supplies in our quilt room.

We don't get a lot of treaters anymore living out in the country, but this is a GREAT idea! And the local dentist probably thanks you, too!

Great ideas, Rob, for the index cards.

I have mechanical pencils and graph composition books. I have bought glue sticks and Sharpies.

This past weekend I got glue sticks, graph paper, zip bags (all sizes), G2 pens (for designing and general use), black sharpies for marking on the zip bags.
Had already gotten color pencils and a pencil box.
Still need to get a new set of color markers.

Graph paper, glue sticks. pencil cases. black sharpies. liquid glue, graph paper (composition books or spiral bound).

I buy several plastic pencil boxes each year. I have to secure all my machine accessories because I have two very nosy cats so I use the pencil boxes for my sewing machine feet, bobbins, and other accessories. Each machine has one or two and they are labeled so you know which boxes go with which machine. I also keep an assortment of seam rippers, stillettos, screw drivers, and brushes in one of these boxes so it's handy while I'm sewing.

I stocked up on plastic crayon boxes ($1.00). I am making English Paper Piecing kits for door prizes at our annual lock-in. I also found plastic boxes for my pencils in my to-go bag. I purchase page protectors at Sam's (200 for $9.97) so much cheaper than WalMart.

I was looking around yesterday too! I bought those page savers tabs (that work like post it's), a spiral bound two year daily planner calendar, mechanical pencils, clear ruler, a sturdy metal supplies holder that had a key and two small notebooks that have a rubber that keeps them closed for notes by the machine on settings and measurements.

I also thought about buying some of the plastic desk organizing containers. One in particular was a small tower of swing out little drawers. I just couldn't use it for anything, but it was so dang nice!

I bought some Elmers & some glue sticks. I love school supply shopping too. I never out grew it even though my youngest is 40 now! lol Good buys on things you use almost daily. Those little pencil boxes are really handy too. I have one for each machine so tools & things are always handy. I also have one for my favorite marking tools. No searching so I love anything to save time

I wait till after the school rush, and get pencil boxes at half price. Really good deal and holds all kinds of quilting notions and also small quilt pieces and patterns.