2025 has just flown by! So much has happened for Idaho Sewing & Vacuum this past year. Here are the highlights:

The biggest news for the year is that we combined our two locations into one large location on the corner of Overland Road and Five Mile in Boise! In April, we moved into this large location that has so much space that we carry almost everything you would need. It also has a large classroom where we can hold events and our classes without having to rearrange the store to have an event. It has been a transition getting everything organized and laid out. While we are mostly close to having everything in place, we are still tweaking a few areas. 

With the closure of the large sewing box chain store in May, we have expanded our offerings of different notions, bias bindings, elastics, trims, and more. We did have some garment and non-quilting fabrics at our old Boise location before, and now at our new space, we have increased the number of bolts and types of fabric we offer. 

During the summer months, we restarted our classes, teaching people about their machines as well as different club opportunities to work on a variety of projects. 

In September, we held our first on-site event with OESD, learning about a variety of different embroidery techniques. It was a one-day lecture with 2 days of hands-on learning. So much fun!

We also attended the local Boise Basin Quilt show in September, and it was nice to see our customers and the projects they had entered into the show. Such a great place to get inspired. 

In October, we welcomed Kari from Bernina for our Bernina 990 event. Students got the chance to play on the Bernina 990 and see all the amazing features it offers. The next week, our Bernina 990 owners had the opportunity to learn more about the different features their machine has. Every time I take a class, I learn something new or remember something that is unique to that machine. 

November and December have been a whirlwind of fabrics, classes, machines, and new notions and thread! I think we have probably the largest thread selection out of any store in the valley. The store continues to grow and evolve. You could take a couple of hours just to take in everything we offe,r from our fabric selection to AccuQuilt to our “Bag” wall to the variety of sewing machines and long arm quilting machines to vacuums. 

If you haven’t checked out our new location, I urge you to stop by and say hi!

So, what’s next for Idaho Sewing and Vacuum? 

In 2026, we will be offering a wide variety of classes. We have our classes from January through March posted. Some new block of the months with our new Saturday Sampler starting the 3rd Saturday in January, and a new machine embroidery block of the month from OESD. We will be hosting a new OESD in March with more information to follow, and in September, Christine from Simply Classic will be joining us. We are continuing to work on bringing in new educators and events for this coming year. 

Thank you to all our amazing customers who have been with us through this transition this year, and to all of our new customers who found us!

Pull out your rotary cutter and your AccuQuilt cutter if you have one and let’s get
started! If you have an AccuQuilt Cutter there is some rotary cutting you will need to do but I
will give which dies will help speed up the process. Strip dies are going to be a game changer.
If you have a wide selection of strip dies you will be set. If you only have a couple of strip dies
these are the ones that I would have for this quilt: 2.5” strip, 1.5” strip, and a 4.5” strip. There
are other strip dies that will work well with this pattern but those three are the most used.
Before I start cutting I would recommend having labels and ziplock bags. Taking the
time to label your pieces and separate your pieces into the different blocks it will save you so
much time later on! I know this can be boring and seem tedious but it will make the next
coming weeks easy.

I start with one fabric at a time. Before cutting, I press my fabric and starch. The starch
helps create crisp cuts. I don’t prewash my fabric but if you do the starch will help get out any
wrinkles. If you bought a kit I don’t recommend pre-washing because it could change the
amount of fabric you have. The kit has high quality fabric and it has very little shrinkage or
bleeding.

You can do a cutting marathon if you want to do it all at once. I currently don’t have a
lot of extra time so for me, I cut a color or two at a time. A new blade in your rotary cutter will
also make this process easier.

If you have an AccuQuilt Cutter, I would use the strip dies to cut your WOF and then cut
down to the rectangles and squares. When you are cutting the Fabric #1- R squares cut 12 of
them as squares. You can also cut these squares using Die #2 from the 8” Qube. Take die #5
from the 8” Qube and cut 46 of the half square triangles. We will be using those in the Tree
Blocks. You will need to cut 4 more triangles for the House blocks. For the 6- 3.5” squares of
Fabric #1, you can use the 6” Qube die #3 to cut 6 triangles. For the ornament blocks, instead
of cutting 2 squares (DB) of Fabric 3 and Fabric 5. You can use the 4” Qube die #5 and cut 4
triangles of each color. For fabric #3 and fabric #9 instead of cutting squares for BR use die #5
from the 6” Qube. Cut 4 triangles from each fabric. From fabric #2, #3, and #1 instead of
cutting 3” squares cut 10 triangles of Fabric #2, 8 triangles of Fabric #3 and 2 triangles of
Fabric #1 using the #5 die from the 8” Qube.

Please post of picture of your cut pieces using the hashtag #idsewcozycabin for a
chance to win a charm pack. Next week we will begin sewing the first row of this quilt!

Susan Chatfield is our winner of our week #1 prize!

Happy sewing!

Hello and welcome to our Cozy Cabin Sew Along! This sew-along features
the Cozy Cabin pattern by Cherry Guidry. This is a low-stress sew-along that will give
you the chance to sew something for yourself and gives you a “me” time break. If you
wish to make table runners or a wall hanging instead of the throw-size quilt is fine. Post
pictures of your progress as we go along using the hashtag #idsewcozycabin and tag
Idaho Sewing & Vacuum @idahosewing. Posting will get you entered in the win prizes
weekly and have a chance to win the grand prize of free Edge to Edge quilting of your
quilt. Join us for this 8-week journey!

Week #1: Gather Supplies
Our Boise location has kits available if you want to make the quilt as shown on
the front cover. You can also purchase kits on our website too. You can pick your own
fabrics if you want and we do have patterns available that are separate from the kit. If
you are using your own fabric, you are going to want to make sure that you make a
copy of the fabric requirements page so you can paste a swatch for each color. Trust
me, you are going to want to be sure to label which fabric you are using so that the
cutting is going to be much easier. Post a picture of your fabrics and pattern for a
chance to win a holiday fat quarter bundle. Week #2 we will be cutting our fabric. You
will want to have baggies, a Sharpie, and a copy of the label page on hand for next
week.

I can’t wait to see what everyone is going to make. I will be giving hints and
tricks on how to make the different blocks that I will be sharing over the next few
weeks! If you have any questions please feel free to call our Boise location (208)
338-0144. I hope you will join me on this quilting adventure!

Happy Quilting!

Laura from Idaho Sewing

So here we are, time to clean our sewing space from all the holiday decoration/gift-giving mess
plus the mess that was there before. Why it takes me until there is just a skinny path between
the doorway and my cutting table to finally decide to do something about it, I don’t just don’t
know. Most likely this is due to the fact that it is just easier to close the door to the room and
pretend the mess doesn’t exist with everything else that is going on.

Now to get started. My method may not work for everyone or you might have to do a modified
version depending on what your space is. To be clear, I have my own space and no one else
currently has any say on what is happening with the space except for me. Last year’s way
didn’t work for me. Today we are going to take everything out of my sewing room. The slight
exception is the bookshelves that run floor to ceiling in my room are staying put. They were a
pain to put in and changing to the other wall isn’t going to make a difference. Stuff on the
shelves will move but not the actual shelves. You will also need an empty-ish space to move
the stuff that is in your current area to that new area. I have a guest room, hallway, etc. If you
live with other people or pets you have to find an area that will work for everything for a bit a
time because this isn’t going to happen overnight.

In total honesty I took this picture partway through the process because I forgot to get an
initial shot. My room was bad. I had batting scraps piled on top of things and all over. By the
time the picture was taken, I had started with the removal of the batting leftovers. Now, while it
is tempting to start to go through things while emptying I urge you not to. The goal is to have
an empty room. If you start going through things it will take longer to achieve the empty room
and you are now sidetracked from the plan. There will be time, later on, to go through things.

With all that being said you might need to have a couple of boxes to put things in. My boxes
were labeled like this; notions, scraps, patterns/books, projects, stash, stuff for the machine, etc.
You get my idea. Go with what works for you and you need to have the all-important trash bag.
How I accumulate so much trash in my sewing room is beyond me but sometimes you have to
draw the line at what you are willing to keep as scrap and if something is broken and you
already have another one. Throw the broken one away! (It is ok, I promise.)

Progress! You might not be able to remove everything from your room all in one day. Take
progress pictures so you can see where you were and where you are at. It took me several
days to empty my room. Life happens and I couldn’t devote all my time to my sewing room
even though I wanted to.

I now have a floor in my room and not just a path. I knew it was bad but didn’t realize how bad
until I could see how clean it could be. While emptying your space, clean at the same time.
Vacuuming and dusting went hand in hand every step of the way. Not only does this keep the
dust from tracking to another space, it will save time when you go to put it away.
Everything is out of the room/space or as much as possibly can be. Wipe the baseboards,
dust, vacuum, and do any other cleaning you want to do. Yea! The room is empty! Read Part 2
so see what to do next.

Happy Sewing!

-Laura