Friday, February 21, 2020

My New Oliso Smart Iron

My New Oliso Smart Iron!

Hey, where is my new Oliso iron?  Has anyone seen it? Ha!
Oliso with a new quilt and an old one (Development)
Yes, I am at QuiltCon!  However, I am also working like crazy to finish up some quilts for another exhibit.  It is hard doing both at the same time, and sleep is scarce.  Which is why I did not notice, as I was quilting late into the night, that the back side of my quilt was getting folds, lots of folds.  And once the fold starts, it continues and gets worse as the quilting continues.  So it had to be fixed.  I was tired and very frustrated because it was the first time I tried to do a lot of quilting lines without checking the back.  Mistake!


If it had only been this one fold, I probably would have just repaired this section (on multiple lines of quilting).  But there were LOTS of sections that had folds like this.


This is the back side of the quilt.  It is another two sided quilt. So BOTH sides have to look good! The seam ripper is holding up the fold so that you can see where the actual seam is.  It is eating about 1/16 of an inch now, but if left un-repaired, that amount grows.

I am quilting in concentric circles, so I had about 10 lines to rip out.


And, I am not a fast ripper.  It was almost good for me though, because I was already doing my best (or at least I thought I was), and I had no idea how to keep this from happening again. And I am really good at basting, but when sewing in concentric circles, crazy things happen, and I have experienced a few of those disasters as well.  I had a new idea to pin baste, and then on my machine with BIG stitches, quilt some randomly spaced radial lines, taking those out as I go, along with the rest of the safety pins.  You can see below, the brown line of thread and the backs of the safety pins (yes, this is the back side of the quilt).

Unfortunately, all the folds were happening right along the edges of those brown basting threads because I forgot about the rip it out before sewing, and I was sewing over them.  Lesson learned. sigh....

I finished ripping and went to the first day of QuiltCon and found this fabulous new Oliso iron! It is so smart!  You can iron with it, and without lifting it, take your hand off, and it automatically pops out these retractable thingies that lift the iron off the work surface! Magic!! I used it to solve my problem.  I have never ironed a quilt during the quilting, but it worked to ease the fullness in during this giant mess of a problem, and allowed me to continue working.


Now watch as I take my hands off temporarily, and use both hands to smooth out the fullness of this large project. The iron pops up! (I will try to take an actual video of the magic, once my 'assistant' wakes up. I will post it on Instagram). You can also google this and find videos of it happening!

A close up of the magic:
Last, I was careful to press both sides of the quilted sandwich before proceeding with the quilting. And, with the 10 foot long cord, it was easy to get around this big quilt! Here is the front side:
Works like a charm!! So far I love this new Oliso iron!  And, it's yellow!!! (comes in other colors too!). And, if you buy it at QuiltCon, there is a discount. Check it out if you are in the market for a new iron.  I am looking forward to using it on many projects to come! And, because it rests in this position, I can be assured that it won't tip over and crash to an early death.  True confession: I have done that to two irons already.

PS. I do not work for Oliso.  If you have a problem with yours, you should contact the company directly.

2 comments:

Susan Sawatzky said...

I hope you have better luck with this iron than I have. I sent one back 3 times to be repaired. First it stopped retracting the feet, second time it stopped turning off when I put it to OFF, third time it leaked water all over. They sent me a new iron and that one developed leaking within the first month.

They sent me back the old one, repaired so they said and also sent me another new one. So I had two that worked, the old one lasted for about 6 months before it developed difficulty. I'm now using the new one and it has stopped turning off intermittently when I put the switch to OFF. I can go in the next day and the iron is still hot so now I unplug every time I'm finished. I know this is the thing to do all the time, but I've never had to do that until now.

Kathy York said...

Susan, First I am so glad to hear that instead of just complaining about a problem, you took action and contacted the company for help. As for me and my uses, I am a bit relieved because I never put water in an iron, and I always unplug it. I will watch out for the issue with the retractable foot. Good luck with your future irons!