Drawing on air and other quilt news

So many interesting things came up on my screen this week. They are:

• The newest, coolest art supply - A pen that draws a tangible, 3-D line, even in mid-air, here. It's sort of like a hot glue gun, but narrower and cooler (temperature-wise as well as hipness). If you send them enough money via Kickstarter, and they start mass-producing, you can eventually own one!
  
  The Kickstarter video reminded me of Picasso's light drawings. Working with a photographer, Picasso  created ephemeral sketches, recordable only by camera. How Picasso would have loved the 3-D pen! While waiting for yours to arrive, draw with light by following this ultra-easy Youtube tutorial.
  
  3-D pen lines and light drawings have a parallel in the stitching world - stitching on temporary  (water soluble or heat-away) stabilizer, then dissolving the stabilizer, leaving just the threads in place. People make scarves, vases and bowls this way, as well as elaborate thread-painted flat appliques. Have you made anything 3-D this way? 

• The thimble lives on! That's the good news. The bad news: The iron has been obliterated! I'm talking, of course, about Monopoly pieces. The company held a Facebook vote on which token should be ditched. On several of my online sewing lists, stitchers were exhorted to stampede to Facebook to vote for keeping the thimble. We succeeded by a thread - the thimble remains - but the iron was voted off the island. Read more about the contest here. Grief-stricken iron  mourners include the quilters of the Chicago School of Fusing. Laura Wasilowski's obituary for the Monopoly iron is here. 

• Old sewing machine table reimagined - The bad news is that the vast majority of  old sewing machines in thrift stores are worthless, and their tables are worth less than that. But this imaginative person turned an old sewing machine table into a.....party cooler?! 

• Pretty modern - McCall's Quilting is offering a free, downloadable "modern" quilt pattern booklet with three cute patterns. I'm not sure I'd call them "modern" - too many pieces - but I might call them modernesque, easy, good for beginners. You have to give them your email address, of course, to download the booklet. Sign up and download here.

• Sewing notions ROCK -  A totally incredible stop-motion animation rock video, starring sewing notions and machine embroidery! With music that's borderline heavy metal! Indescribably wonderful: http://vimeo.com/58893010. I think Picasso would approve.