Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
Fabric keeps appearing on my doorstep.
I think I have a fairy quilt mother.
Actually, I know who it is. Mrs. K is on a mission to find some more Happy Go Lucky light grey. In the process she is sending me some lovely greys. I now know what the background of the next few quilts will be. 😉
It has been awhile since I posted an update on this project. Nonnie asked about it during the Black Friday Sew-in and I thought it would be a good time to do an update.
I am shocked that the last time I posted about this project was in September. I am also shocked that it is December and I am about to need to start sewing this baby together.
One thing that has happened is that I have washed very little fabric this Fall. I don’t want a huge pile hanging around the workroom waiting to be pressed, so I haven’t been washing fabric unless I need it. A lot of what you see in the photo (left) comes from the various projects I have worked on recently, most specifically the Scrapitude project. I’ll need to wash some fabric soon as I’d like to make sure some of it gets in this project.
I am really shocked that in a month and a half I’ll be sewing this project together. That is the plan anyway. I can’t go to the CQFA Retreat (super sad face), so I am going to have to mark out specific time to sew it together.
I don’t always chastise myself very vociferously for making a big mess in my workroom, because happy accidents happen with messes.
I found a new Philip Jacobs print at Roxanne’s in Carpenteria (you really MUST go there as soon as possible). The tan background isn’t really my color, but I love Phil and those mums are to drool for.
I was unpacking stuff from my trip and the Philip Jacobs flowers were flung onto my cutting table temporarily. They happened to land near this Lori Wisburn print from several years ago. It is from the Tufted Tweets line. I don’t know why it was in the pile, but it was a good thing it was, because I saw the two together and thought “hmmm, that could be the start of something”.
Not sure what.
But something. Something interesting for sure.
As I mentioned in a previous (ok, really old) post, I talked about
my new/old cutting table. Normally, the table is in the middle of the room and working piles are scattered around. Not this week. The cutting table has been in the closet for over a week and the room looks strangely clean. I hope to change that this weekend by sewing.
Yes, I am able to sew today, because the machine is back. I picked it up on my way from Grama’s. The boys are gone at a band review (I really should go to one of those sometime) so the laundry and I will have the house to ourselves.
The Russian Rubix is on one of the design walls – all the little octagons crammed together jockeying for space. On the other design wall is the Attack of the Hexies.
One plan is to pick a background for the Attack of the Hexies. I received the grey i ordered and it is the wrong grey. It is the darker version of the grey I used in the A-B-C Challenge (HAP 207 S not HAP 207 LS). I hope the company will let me return it, otherwise I’ll be calling Candy’s Quiltworks to see if they still have the one I want. I am not hopeful, so I have to plow through some of my other fabrics and see what will work with what grey I have.
My other idea is from the new Scrumptious line. It is a green stripe and there are a couple of things that concern me.
One, it is a stripe. What if all the stripes going in different directions drives me crazy?
It is a Moda fabric. I love the Moda designs, often, but I don’t love the way the fabric ravels. I am not sure I could stand working with it again on such a large project.
I do like that it is different.
We’ll see.
Last November Bonnie Hunter’s Mystery Quilt was Easy Street. I liked the idea, but wasn’t that excited about the mystery part of the quilt. I kind of like to have an idea of what the quilt will look like.
Thanks to Pam and many others, I know, basically, what the piece looks like and I am still interested.
While I am not anywhere near cutting and sewing, I have been thinking about fabrics. I want to use grey for the background for some reason that I can’t fathom. To that end I have bought a few pieces of grey lately.
I have been disappointed in the greys I have purchased recently. They are too beige The perfect grey, which I may have mentioned, was the Happy Go Lucky grey by P&B Textiles, which I used to bring the block sup to size in the A-B-C Challenge (I definitely mentioned this). You can see the perfect grey on page 2 of the fabric card. All the Happy Go Lucky now is by Bonnie and Camille and definitely does not include the grey I want.
There is a lot of “starting new projects” in my head. I need to be mindful and judicious of ruining the progress I have made on my UFOs. I am also not ready to give up the small projects project.
I spent a lot of time cutting over the weekend, which served a few purposes:
I really wanted to make progress on cutting for my Super Secret project and for the Russian Rubix. I just wanted to see what the fabrics would look like cut up.
It turns out I am using the same fabric for both projects. I like the combination so far. Probably not the same background and I will probably use the more colors (fabrics) for the Super Secret project than for the Russian Rubix, but the base colors and fabrics are the same.
Most of the fabrics on the right (above) are fabrics I am using for the two projects. The group shown is small, because the design wall is full of the RR octagons.
I cut octagons from all of the fabrics chosen so far, but there is a pile of them on my cutting table that won’t fit on the design wall. I need to move them to my portable design wall, but the Attack of the Hexies project is there and I am actually working on it a bit, so I don’t want to lose the momentum by taking it off. I’d really like to get that project out of my life. It was fun for awhile, but I am ready to be done with it. Working on it makes it more fun.
It really has been awhile since I filled up part of the design wall enough to post some squares for this project for you. Summer was busy; I wasn’t ironing. I don’t know what I was doing. Read the blog, then you’ll know.
I hate to shatter your illusions, but on many things I am no expert 😉 and can always learn something. Recently I bought some home dec fabric to make a bag (or a couple of bags, really). I got it and realized I didn’t know how to deal with it.
I always pre-wash. I even pre-wash Jelly Rolls and Layer Cakes. The smell of the chemicals from the fabric when I iron unwashed fabric makes me break out in a rash. I am not ranting or proselytizing; I am not telling you what I do. There are no quilt police on this blog. I encourage you to do whatever you want that allows you to make many, many quilts.
I have made accessories and small items with home dec fabric before, but it wasn’t yardage. Mostly I used scraps from various sources, such as FabMo. I almost never buy home dec yardage so the question of pre-washing has never come up. Most of the home dec fabric I have used doesn’t smell (off gassing) by the time I get it, is in relatively small quantities and is made from specialty fibers so I don’t think of pre-washing.
However, with the bags I want to make, I am going to be pressing a lot and don’t really want to wear a mask while I make the bag, thus the question of pre-washing came up. I contacted Lindsay and Charlie over at Hawthorne Threads and they pointed me to a post on Make It Love It.com. It talks generally about pre-washing, but not specifically about home dec fabric.
I am using home dec fabric for the bag, because I want the added body and strength beyond quilt weight fabric. Will the finishes wash off and leave me with a limp mess? Can I replace the body/finishes with Mary Ellen’s Best Press?
Do you have any ideas, thoughts, wisdom to share? By the time you read this I might have already washed it.
I am still cutting squares for FOTY 2013. You can see a lot of the squares from the Round Robin piece in this group.
I was trying to put the squares in color order, which is a good exercise. It is also hard if you are working with what you have rather than being able to select specific colors to fill in. I did pretty well, but was having trouble with the pearl Bracelets purple. It is so dark.
See the last group.
I spent a happy hour last week in my workroom after dinner trying to get a handle on the un-ironed fabric that is causing havoc in my workroom. I feel like I have been ironing fabric forever. I know that is why many of you don’t pre-wash your fabric. Trust me, if it weren’t for the smell of burning chemicals when I press, I’d be right there with you. Still, I found a couple of pillowcase bodies that I had cut who knows when. I cut a couple of pieces of Lizzy House Pearl Bracelets dark green for the cuffs and pinned together a couple of pieces of fabric that will be pillowcases soon.
Yes, I am using up some precious Lizzy House Pearl Bracelets. Frankly, I have enough fabric and my fabric is currently overwhelming me, so it is a good use. Also, that green went really well with the taco and burrito fabric I had previously cut for the body of the pillowcase.
The above two paragraphs are a precursor to my post-Star Sampler idea. I don’t know if it will work, but I am going to try to work through some small projects and patterns for bags, etc. Of course, there are quilts on the 26 Projects list that I want/need to finish, so I will work on those. Also, I have bought a number of pieces of fabric for specific small craft items such as pillowcases. I want to get those sewn and out the door. I also have patterns and some fabric for other projects such as bags. I want to make another Petrillo bag. I need more journal covers. I am thinking that I am going to take some time and work on these types of projects. I am going to try, at least.
I may sneak some leaders and enders for charity quilts in, but that is my idea.
There is something I like about this 2013 Fabric of the Year project. I like having a piece of each fabric. Once the quilts are finished, I love walking by them and thinking “that fabric would be perfect for this project” or “OH! I remember that fabric. It was such great fabric.” It is like looking at a scrapbook.
I am afraid I am getting tired of it, though. Perhaps I am just tired. I know I am tired, but having the feeling seep over into fabric is scary.
These are blues from the end of the Star Sampler project. Mostly, I made the 4″ Sawtooth Stars from these fabrics. Yes, I did arrange them purposefully to be only a blue batch. I have a whole additional group that I’ll photograph later that is all different colors.
I decided to use the Rainbow grouping I bought at Birch a few years ago. There are some nice modern prints that the BAMQG color group will appreciate and I will finally get to use this group.
TFQ is in town for a visit. She came over on Sunday to hang out and we looked through the fabrics I wanted to consider for the Round Robin project I discussed last week. I am always pleased to have a second set of eyes help clear the fabric fog, but I especially appreciate TFQ’s opinion, because she has a good sense of design. We were particularly focused on the background. We started with the Kona color card and were looking at a Kona Honey Dew. I wasn’t in the mood to buy fabric and she won’t be home until later this week to send me any, so I put the color card away.
We went through a lot of fabrics and finally came up with three finalists: all dots, two grey and one white with rainbow. The first option is a small grey dot, which worked well with the group of fabric I chose. I believe the dot is from a Camille Roskelly line, but am not 100% sure.
Ta Dot in Stone is always a good option as well. I thought, and TFQ concurred that the dots were too big and would overwhelm the other fabrics. I do like that Ta Dot Stone as a background, though.
The best option, though is this Rainbow dot. I have wanted to use more dots in my work this year. The white background perks up the other fabrics. None of the other fabrics will bleed into the background and blur the shape of any of the piecing.
Now I have to make a center.
I have slowly been cutting FOTY squares. You’ll see a lot of these are the Textured Basics by Patty Young as well as blues and turquoises.
Despite my purported reluctance to use patterns, I found a pattern in Easy Quilts (don’t fall over in shock and horror) that I thought was interesting. In the photo in the magazine, I thought the Patty Young prints looked really fresh. When I got them, they had a bit too much beige in the light areas, but I still like the reds, greens and turquoise. As I was cutting for FOTY, I cut the pieces for this quilt as well. The pieces are large and it will go together easily, but there isn’t really anything to show on the blog yet, especially since my design walls are still both covered with Sawtooth Stars.
I am also in the midst of making a lot of 4″ Sawtooth Stars. I should be able to finish the last 15 today and start putting the top together, thus the other blue fabrics in this group.
I have no business buying fabric. I have a big pile to iron, another big pile to cut and another pile that has not made it to the washing machine yet. Yes, I participate in wine o’clock occasionally, though my #1 stress reliever has come to be buying fabric. Last week was stressful, so I bought fabric. I didn’t buy a lot on my recent trip down south, but I did buy some. It is so nice to buy fabric in person.
We stopped at Birch Fabrics in Paso Robles (aka FabricWorm on the web) on the way down, and Roxanne’s and Quiltin’ Cousins on the way back up. I have talked about Birch before and will write another post about it later to update you on the changes there. I wanted to talk about Roxanne’s first.
Roxanne’s, it turns out, used to the be the Treasure Hunt, which I visited and enjoyed in the past. Roxanne told my mom, who talks to everyone!, that she had a quilt /craft shop in that location for 25 years. After 25 years, she kept the building, but sold the business to someone who owned the Treasure Hunt. Last year the owner of the Treasure Hunt decided that owning a quilt shop was not her idea of a good time, so Roxanne gutted the building, which was completely empty, remodeled, upgraded and re-opened Roxanne’s. They have a large selection of crafting supplies such as yarn and paints, but their biggest offerings seemed to be in quiltmaking. It is a gorgeous building on the inside. I love the wall colors and the decorations.
I don’t know if Roxanne’s was a house at one point. The street seems to have mixed zoning and it kind of looks like a rancher. The inside has been completely redone, as I mentioned, so it is most definitely a shop now.
One of the reasons to LOVE this shop is the tile mosaic counter front.
California Adventure in Anaheim has an outdoor mosaic like this. I think it was the first one of this creative type that I ever saw and I wanted to do a backsplash like when we remodeled our kitchen in 2007. I wasn’t really up for the amount of work or the cost or the time, though, and let it go. I do want to do a piece like this in a frame as a welcome sign and hang it next to my front door. Something large and impressive.
If you hadn’t noticed, I love color. Bright colors and lots of them. I don’t like gaudy, but I love putting interesting color combinations together.
First, of all, the blue of the wall color is fabulous. Second, that wall sculpture add so much interest to the room. It reminds me of It’s a Small World in Disneyland, but not in an annoying way. It makes me smile. The rectangular areas under the roofs of the wall sculpture have small areas for quilt samples.
I almost had a seizure when I saw this group of shelving.
Do you know what it is?
Philip Jacobs fabrics.
A whole 3 long shelves of them!
There were some Martha Negleys thrown in as well. I have never seen anything like this before and could have bought all of them. I didn’t, though. I bought cuts from two different yardages that I hadn’t seen before and walked away before I truly lost my mind. I really need to win the lottery so I can A) not work and sew all the time; B) buy whatever fabric I want in whatever quantity I want whenever I want. It may not seem like I restrain myself when buying fabric, but I really do. I could have bought so much more than I did.
Next to the blue wall on one side is a pink wall. I love the combination of the two next to each other.
This is a great store. Definitely stop if you are in Carpinteria. Well worth it!
I have cut more pieces for the Fabric of the Year 2013 quilt. Many of the fabrics in this group turned out to be more greyed… or not as bright perhaps as I thought. That is the problem with buying fabric online. The colors just don’t reproduce as well our eyes see them.
Still I am pleased with Texture Basics pieces (dots, stripes, diamonds & houndstooth). They are not ugly and the red and teal are particularly nice.
I am already cutting them up for a project, which is great as well.
I am still plowing through the piles of fabric to iron. I iron fabric when I need to think and when I am under stress and it it calms me. I suppose the tactile nature of the fabric helps, but, as I probably don’t need to say, the color and design help, too.