Sew by hand OR by machine. The COTSIM mystery is for everyone!
Monkey has his shades and his Flip-Flop Sewing Kit ready because the first clue in the Case of the Stranger in Margaritaville will be announced “before the end of the month.” Mysterious, eh?
If you enjoy secret surveillance, you can do a stake-out on the blog until you spy the first clue. (Otherwise, you can just subscribe to the blog—top of right side-bar—so you will receive an email as soon as the first clue is released. It’s up to you.)
In the meantime, there is a new print checklist for you. (Download PDF)
Answer any 3 questions in the Inklingo Quiz on the website.
1.__________________
2.__________________
3.__________________
(Answers for Inklingo Quiz.)
If you want to be ready to start printing the minute the first clue is posted. . .
Cut at least one sheet of Freezer Paper (FP) for these Custom Page Sizes.
7.25 x 13.5 Portrait for 20 Diamonds – Layout A
7.25 x 11.25 Portrait for 16 Diamonds – Layout A
3.75 x 11.25 Portrait for 8 Diamonds – Layout A
8.5 x 10.75 Landscape for 32 Small Triangles
NOTES
(1) If you are using scraps instead of fat quarters, wait to cut the FP. There are other Suggested Custom Page Sizes for each shape. For example, see page 31 of the Key West 6 inch shape collection for other possible sizes for printing Small Triangles.
(2) If you are using directional fabric or stripes you might want to use one of the other layouts for diamonds, so you will need different custom page sizes.
Eager detectives will set up the ironing board near the computer/printer, so they can react quickly. You don’t have to have a computer in your sewing room.
I like to set up an ironing board to be near the computer and cut 2 or 4 sheets of FP in each size, so I can be ironing FP to one fabric while another one is printing.
My coolest tips for cutting FP are on page H26 of the free Diamond Triangle Square shape collection and there are tips for using scraps of FP on page H41.
Love the lines. Quilt more!
COMING SOON
Getting ready for the mystery
COTSIM Mystery Clue #1
ARE YOU SUBSCRIBED?
If you subscribe to the blog (top of right side-bar), you will always be the first to see the mystery clues.
If you know anyone who has not tried Inklingo yet, please let them know about the new mystery because it is a great introduction to this wonderful quilting tool.
New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Main Beginner’s Page There are triangles, diamonds, and squares in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.
All of Canada was watching Olympic hockey early this morning, including Monkey.
I hope you have some Inklingo shapes printed and ready to sew if you intend to watch TV all day long. The hockey is over, but we’ve still got Downton Abbey and the Olympic Closing Ceremonies today!
Printing shapes is fast, so there is still time to get something ready.
The 3 winter checklists include a new Castle Wall block, ice hockey, and some flowers—because Monkey and I are looking forward to spring.
$50 INKLINGO GIFT CERTIFICATE
You could win! Leave a comment, not here, but HERE to be in the draw for a $50 Inklingo Gift Certificate. It’s about the article about Lucy Boston in the new issue of The Quilt Life.
The winner will be announced on the first day of spring, March 20.
You don’t have to wait until spring to start inklingoing because there are FREE shapes too. Quick Start Guide
ARE YOU SUBSCRIBED?
You can subscribe (top of right sidebar) to receive an email when there is something new on the blog.
Congratulations to the athletes from every country who inspired us to keep doing our best and to never give up.
Thank you for visiting!
Linda & Monkey
New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Quick Start (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.
Monkey says you will be thankful for the Inklingo Thanksgiving Print Checklist when you see Clue # 1 tomorrow, so he recommends downloading the one-page PDF today. You can keep it near the printer.
When Bonnie releases her first clue tomorrow morning, we will share our tips for using Inklingo here on the blog. You will also be able to order and download Bonnie’s Celtic Solstice Shape Collection ($20).
Evidence in Every Clue
Bonnie’s Shape Collection will stay at a special low price for a few weeks so you can make your decision after you have seen a few clues.
I always recommend starting with the free shapes. That way there are no surprises—or only pleasant ones.
Are You Subscribed?
If you don’t want to miss anything, you can subscribe to get an email when there is more evidence (top of right sidebar).
Russ and I are celebrating Thanksgiving a second time in Canada. We have a lot to be thankful for, so we celebrate twice.
Happy Thanksgiving! We are very grateful for our Inklingo friends! Thank you for being here.
Linda & Monkey
New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Quick Start (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.
Quilters often ask me which Inkjet printer they should buy for Inklingo.
From 2006 until recently, I was confident with this advice:
You can choose a printer based on your primary need and it will be fine for Inklingo.
If Inklingo is your primary need, you can just buy whatever is on sale.
You do NOT need special ink or a special printer, thanks to the way I created Inklingo.
If you already have an Inkjet printer, you are all set. If you only have a laser printer, you can add an inexpensive Inkjet and have two printers connected to your computer at the same time.
By printing a test page, you know which of the pages are safe to print on fabric with YOUR printer. Ordinary Inkjet printers all print “custom page sizes”—at least they did until recently—so we can use fabric efficiently and make better quilts faster.
From the beginning, it was my intention to design Inklingo to be accessible to everyone—no extra equipment, nothing expensive required.
I pressed the same way I would press a quilt block and then rinsed the fabric in the kitchen sink. There is a tiny trace of color 50 left, but it does not show on the other side, so even it would be safe. All of the other 19 colors washed out completely.
NOTE You must test on YOUR printer—even if you are using the same model.
They are always playing around with ink formulas, so it may be different next time.
Almost all Inkjet ink will wash out completely immediately after it is printed, but for a true test, we need to press first because our quilt blocks will be pressed.
All you have to do is enter the size you want to print in the Canon print dialog box.
It is easy to insert your custom size of FP/fabric in the tray too.
The paper tray is shallow but it is easy to pull out and re-insert with one hand.
Slide the guides to hug your custom page size. This page is 6.75 x 9.75.
One hand on the gray guide (top red arrow) moves both guides together. Perfect.
The print side is down, so the fabric is down and the FP is up.
The tray is not deep, but it is deep enough to hold 15 or 20 sheets of fabric at a time.
It won’t print custom page sizes longer than 14 inches, which I used to be able to do, but it is rarely required and you can always print two shorter sheets instead.
Click to play the video. (47 seconds)
HOW TO CLEAR A JAM?
I’m beginning to suspect that this printer was designed by a woman. LOL
I printed a few dozen sheets of fabric without a jam.
However, for the purpose of my review, I wanted to see how difficult it would be to clear a jam.
After many failed attempts to create a jam (LOL), I deliberately used a sheet of fabric/FP which had not been ironed on both sides. If there was any unwashed fabric in the house, that might have been a good way to get a jam. (See Print on Fabric Best Tips in the Top Ten Tutes, above).
I had to feed the “bad” sheet twice before it FINALLY jammed, as desired!
To my absolute delight, the jam was easy to clear.
Since the ink had not been pressed yet, I was able to rinse the fabric in the sink to remove every trace of ink, dry the fabric, and re-use it.
The back of the printer opens easily with one hand and there is another piece inside which lifts out easily so you can see deep inside. It was easy to put both pieces back correctly. The top-front lifts up for another view inside.
Everything is accessible. The instructions in the user manual (automatically installed) made it easy to see what to do.
Even though I have only had to clear one jam, I am confident that it won’t be a problem, especially since jams are rare if you follow the tips for printing on fabric in the Top Ten Tutes.
OTHER COMMENTS
1. I have not used it long enough to know how much ink it uses.
The price of ink is not very important to me because Inklingo uses such a tiny amount of ink, but if you do a lot of non-Inklingo printing or photos, it might be important to you.
There is a display on the printer showing how much ink remains in each cartridge.
2. Allow an hour for setup. All of the steps are simple, but there are a lot of them!
Easy to follow pictures
Imported the custom paper sizes I created on my last HP Inkjet
(Monkey says that is a friendly thing to do.)
Installed a user manual that I can find just by searching for Canon on the Windows start button
3. There were several similar Canon Inkjet printers in the store and they all looked like this one. I don’t really know what the differences are, but this one was on sale and has several 4 star reviews online. Sold.
One of the other Canon Pixma Inkjets might be better for you if your primary need is something other than Inklingo, but the nice design of the paper trays, software, etc. is the same.
Please be sure to check the “Top Ten Tutes” tab (above) for more of our best tips for using Inklingo.
The Print Checklists will keep you organized and make the printing easier.
BEWARE OF HEWLETT PACKARD INKJETS – NO CUSTOM SIZES ANYMORE?
Unfortunately, someone at HP made the decision to stop including “user defined” or Custom Page Sizes in the software of most of their printers. The hardware is capable of it, but the software is not. Until recently, they always included the ability to print custom sizes in the software, but something changed.
The ability to set whatever size we want is important for Inklingo, because it allows us to use the fabric efficiently, without waste.
In November 2012 I updated the FAQ under the Support tab on the website with a warning about HP. At that time there were only two all-in-ones with software to support custom page sizes.
From my first computer in 1998, I have always preferred HP printers. Not any more.
When I realized what HP was doing, I told Russ I thought the company was in trouble. It just so happens that their stock is way down. Maybe they have not been listening to the needs of their customers. Maybe we should buy stock in Canon. (No affiliation. Just a happy Canon customer.)
We’re working on something new, so please subscribe to to get an email when we add to the blog (top of right sidebar).
See you again soon!
Linda & Monkey
New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Quick Start (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.
We promised you a few bonus tips, so Monkey is back.
1. You can cut the fabric smaller than the freezer paper (red arrows).
Normally I trim around the freezer paper at the ironing board because it is easier and faster, as described in our Top Ten Tutes: Print on Fabric – Best Tips.
In those illustrations, you can see that I usually only have to trim two adjacent sides because the FP extends beyond the fabric on the other two sides. It is a fast way of preparing fabric sheets for the printer.
However, if I need to, I can cut the fabric separately and then position it on the freezer paper.
It takes a little longer, but in this case I needed to save every little bit because although the fabric seemed to have a 12 inch repeat (as described in Wednesday Tute 13), after washing the repeat was closer to 11.5 inches.
I needed to cut the fabric shorter and leave a little space at the top (leading edge) and bottom.
Inkjet printers normally allow for 0.25 inch margins on the top and sides and 0.5 inch on the bottom, so Inklingo layouts of shapes do too. That means you can cut your fabric 0.5 inch shorter than the FP and still print everything you need on the fabric.
Since I needed to cut the fabric separately anyway, I decided to cut it a little narrower too. Instead of 7.25 inches, I cut it 7 inches and centered it on the FP.
Saving 0.25 x 6 might make the difference to get an extra row of identical sheets from 42-43 inch wide fabric.
By the way, there are other nifty tricks for saving fabric and using scraps and jelly rolls in the first chapter of The Inklingo Handbook which is included in the free shape collection on pages H5 – H38.
I am careful to position the fabric exactly the same way on all 6 sheets of 7.25 x 12 inch FP.
As long as all of the sheets are identical, all of the stars will be perfect kaleidoscopes! (NOTE: That means you have to put the sheets in the printer all facing the same way too, okay?)
2. You can rotary cut several layers at a time.
This is faster than cutting with scissors AND it has an additional advantage when you stack identical rows because the shapes are already sorted into sets for the stars.
Remove the freezer paper from all 6 sheets. (It can be used again.) Cut each single layer into rows (above).
Stack identical rows, keeping an eye on the printed lines on the edges.
I find it too difficult to rotary cut 6 layers of fabric even with a fresh blade, so I generally stack and cut 3 rows at a time.
By stacking identical rows, the diamonds are already sorted into perfect sets for the stars. My portable kit is organized and ready any time.
You can see how I cut and stay organized in the video.
This method of printing diamonds for Kaleidoscope Stars has several advantages over other methods, whether it is called “fussy cutting,” “One Block Wonder,” or “Stack n Whack,” as described in Wednesday Tute 13.
The diamonds for all of these stars were printed on the same fabric with Inklingo.
There is so much variety that you might think there is more than one fabric involved.
Each one is a little surprise, but you know they will all look great together because they all came from the same fabric.
Can you imagine how long it would take to cut each diamond separately with an acrylic template?
WOW. Life it too short!
Please be sure to check the “Top Ten Tutes” tab (above) for more of our best tips for using Inklingo.
The Print Checklists will keep you organized and make the printing easier.
All of the steps are so fast and easy with Inklingo that we think you might take the time to fussy cut/fussy print more of your quilts. It can transform a beautiful quilt into one that will amaze everyone!
MORE WEDNESDAY TUTES
You can catch up on our other Wednesday Tutes too:
In the past two weeks there have been 100 new “likes” the Inklingo FB page. Conchita, Rosa and other FB fans have been busy! Thank you!
Monkey looks so happy when there are new likes! If you use FB, please help us get to his next goal of 1500.
We’re working on something new, so please subscribe to to get an email when we add to the blog (top of right sidebar).
See you again soon!
Linda & Monkey
New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Quick Start (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.
It’s my birthday today. This year it falls on the Monday holiday of our Victoria Day long weekend in Canada. That doesn’t happen very often.
It feels special.
I had my first birthday party when I was 5 years old. The direction of my life was already established.
The pearls were my very favorite present.
Pink, plastic, snap-together, probably 19 cents from Woolworth’s.
My mother had already taught me how to sew on her Singer.
She definitely made the dress for my older sister, a hand-me-down for me. It had a full skirt.
My father took photos and developed them in his darkroom in the cellar.
Photography was in my genes.
To this day, I love pretty things, I love to sew, I love photography, and I love celebrating with friends.
Birthday Traditions
We know how to celebrate a birthday.
The best birthday cakes are homemade.
My choice was Angel Food with chocolate icing.
Other than little children, everyone gets 3 candles on the birthday cake.
One for yesterday, one for today, one for tomorrow.
The best birthday cards are homemade.
I usually drew a lady wearing a crown on the front—until I was old enough to use my own photos.
The best gifts are homemade.
My younger sister made this little quilt for me on the Singer while I was spending happy days in kindergarten. (We always played together, so she missed me.)
Mum taught us all how to sew before we were old enough to go to kindergarten. I have thanked her a million times for teaching me to love making things.
With all that in mind, it seems right to make a Birthday Card for you! It’s a checklist—something else that I have used all my life. LOL
Your birthday card PDF includes a Print Checklist, a Newbie Checklist (only one candle for newbies), and a What to Make Checklist. Click on the card to download.
There are other Print Checklists for Inklingo on the blog too. (There is lots of great stuff in the archives, so have a look around.) Are you subscribed to get email updates? (Right sidebar) There is some good stuff coming, and you wouldn’t want to miss a checklist, would you?
I hope you have memories of happy birthdays too.
I’m having cake and ice cream.
Linda & Monkey
New to Inklingo? Order and download free shapes and start sewing in the next few minutes. Quick Start (Always FREE.) There are triangles, diamonds, and squares in the free collection—great for dozens of different blocks.
![[]](https://lindafranz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/inklingo-heart.png)
