Useless Quiling Gadgets & Other Boondoggles
#21
Bought 2 sewing machines from Walmart and sewed them to death before finding out the machines just weren't made for the amount of sewing I do. I realize that not everyone can afford an expensive machine, but there are better brands than what Walmart sells.
#22
I have my fair share of 'gadgets', specialty rulers being my weakness. I usually try to us the item, at least once. Some stay and some gather dust.
I think that our impulse weakness, is when we see it demonstrated it looks so easy and in our mind .. 'oh, that will help me soo much!', but when we get it home and months later when we pull 'it' out to try ... we do not remember how 'they' said it works. So read through the instructions, play with it ... darn that doesn't look right ... read some more ... get interrupted ... back to reading, playing ... success .. then might use it again ... months/years later.
We are all impulse shoppers... why do you think they have all that candy at the check out counters.
I think that our impulse weakness, is when we see it demonstrated it looks so easy and in our mind .. 'oh, that will help me soo much!', but when we get it home and months later when we pull 'it' out to try ... we do not remember how 'they' said it works. So read through the instructions, play with it ... darn that doesn't look right ... read some more ... get interrupted ... back to reading, playing ... success .. then might use it again ... months/years later.
We are all impulse shoppers... why do you think they have all that candy at the check out counters.
#23
Power Poster
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Western Wisconsin
Posts: 12,930
Whether or not the Baby is worth it to you depends on how much you will use it. I thought I would love my Go! for cutting strips, but I don't; I actually prefer using my June Tailor Shape Cut mat. What I find the Go! really useful for is cutting odd shapes (such as tumbler, hexagon, and many people like the rag die) and for triangles. For triangles, you get many triangles per run through the machine and they are all absolutely accurate with "dog ears" cut off. Makes matching them up very easy. For people who find it difficult to rotary cut strips and other straight lines using rulers, the Go! is indispensable because it increases accuracy. I am fine with rotary cutting, so I use the Go! less than some.
It comes back to how the individual likes to work.
#24
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Texas
Posts: 512
If I was investing in a cutting machine, I'd get the Go!. You won't be happy with the Baby once you have it. Yes, the dies are expensive, but you buy them one or two @ a time and it's not that bad. Buy only the ones that you 'know' you'll be using and go from there. I'd still be making my first quilt without my Go!
#25
I bought that stupid "add a quarter" ruler that is only 1/4" wide because it was on the supplies list for a paper piecing class. I used it for the very first piece of fabric and then decided that the 1/4" marking on my workhorse 5 x 24 inch ruler worked much better. Same class, same supplies list, I bought the "purple thang". If I'd known that my bamboo shishkabob skewers do exactly the same thing I would have saved that money too.
#26
yep,I bought that one too...........JUNK
simplicity rotary cutting machine. Fortunately it was a gift so no cost to me, but I feel bad not using something a friend paid a good bit of money for. I can not get it to cut straight. It is ok for cutting scraps into strings if you don't care if they are perfectly straight but that is all, IMHO.
#27
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 381
I don't piece if I can help it so I use my Baby Go for cutting out applique shapes. I only do fusable applique. I used it a lot In the beginning. Now it is like every other quilt gadget it sits more than it gets used. Since I primarily make Linus quilts I got the cute dies. I have a friend who is a dealer and gives me a 25% discount. I think I would use it more if I had a place to leave it set up. Having to pack and unpack each time I want to use it means it stays in it's box more often than not.
#28
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Ohio
Posts: 952
I LOVE my sidewinder bobbin winder. I can sit and load up bunches of bobbins and when I am sewing, I don't have to stop and un-thread the machine and go through the filling of the bobbin on the machine.
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BellaBoo
General Chit-Chat (non-quilting talk)
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04-18-2010 05:46 PM