Wednesday, January 6, 2016

A New Tool for Tearing Away Stabilizer

I usually use an awl for tearing away tight valleys of stabilizer on the back of my quilts.  However, I have no idea where I put my awl so I needed a new one.  Off to my local quilt shop I went.  I didn't find an awl, but I found this:


It's meant to be used to pick out threads that are under the surface of the quilt top and can be seen and need to be removed.  The tip of it is actually the tiniest crochet hook I have ever seen.  HOWEVER, I thought it would work great for reaching into those tiny valley to get the stabilizer out since the tip is so skinny.

I was so right.  It's my new favorite tool for this and it works even better than my awl did.


First, I put the awl through the stabilizer to the point of the valley as shown above.


Then I pulled the tool up ripping the stabilizer.   Sometimes it rips right along the stitching line and sometimes it doesn't.  However, now I can easily pull off those small bits of stabilizer.

Now that I have this wonderful new tool, there's only one thing left to do: find a safe place for it so I won't lose it and have to go buy another one!

Suzy


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