Marsha Webb is our first guest designer. Her bio and pictures of her seam rippers follow.
In her own words...
As a young child filling out my red spiral-bound About Me notebook, the one constant through the years was the answer to What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up: Artist. A significant detour through college and beyond led me down the engineering path, with minimal opportunity to pursue artistic outlets. Several career changes later, during my wonderful time as a stay-at-home Mom, I felt a strong drive to attempt woodcarving. Living in the self-proclaimed Decoy Capital of the World (Havre de Grace, MD), I was able to find excellent instructors to begin my education into the world of woodcarving with power tools. My woodcarving today varies from ducks and owls to Santas and sea turtles.
Soon after, my husband Dave was given the opportunity to teach Mathematics at West Point, NY. Not unlike the Beverly Hillbillies, we packed up a U-Haul and spent a wonderful year living on the campus amongst the cadets and military families. At a weekly craft club, a patient and talented neighbor introduced me to small hand-sewn wall hangings, and my love of quilting was born. A speedy sewing machine acquisition and access to some lovely NY quilt shops pulled me right down that rabbit hole. Upon our return to MD after that year, how fortunate was I to learn that we had a wonderful quilt shop nearby. Many Friday afternoons sewing there blessed me with a group of friends, many of whom I still sew with today.
Fast backward again to that year at West Point. A coworker of my husband gave him a handmade pen as a gift. It was a very simple and elegant pen, made of Honduran rosewood. I held it, studied it, and said “I have to learn how to do this”. My family gifted me a table-top lathe, which has further encouraged my artistic pursuits and love of tools and gadgets (engineering brain). For those unfamiliar with a lathe, it is a machine that spins at 1500+ rpm pieces of wood or plastic, at which you poke sharp tools to make beautiful rounded pieces. This is called “turning”, proving to be an equally seductive rabbit hole to me as are quilting and woodcarving.
Enjoying my first year of retirement, I spend as much time as possible with my hobbies. One of my favorite items to make on the lathe are seam rippers. Each seam ripper is unique, following my ideal of ergonomically mindful design with an endless variety of wood and acrylic handle options. I will be adding more sewing tools to my turning repertoire, to include seam rollers, thread cutters, and necklace tool options.
My husband and I are enjoying retirement together with our two rescue Mexican Hairless dogs Koko and Mojo. We are blessed that our adult son Dan lives less than an hour away, and regularly “borrows” completed quilts. I love detouring back to that inner child who always wanted to be an artist.
OhSewSally! sells Marsha's custom made seam rippers in beautiful colors at $36 each. Her latest design has a flat side to prevent the seam ripper from rolling away from you. One end has the seam ripper and the other a stiletto. Both ends are replaceable when they become dull. Treat yourself or your sewing buddy to one for Valentine's Day. It is guaranteed to last longer than flowers and chocolates. Check these out in the shop and online.
