Tag: Fabric

Coalescing Ideas Continued…

If you don’t go back and read the comments to some of my posts, I encourage you to do it every once in a while. I don’t get a lot of comments, so it shouldn’t really be a hardship. You can also subscribe to them on the comments page and then they will come to your e-mail! WOW! Isn’t technology great!?!

In the post I wrote about Jane Blair’s quilt, Things Change, and my friend TFQ’s project to use a piece of all the fabric she bought last year, Jeanne commented:

“I like the 2.5″ x 4.5” block; the pieces are a better proportion to the block overall.

I’ve been really happy with this project over the past year. I liked the way it got me to cut into my fabrics right away, not just for my swatches, but to actually use them. Nothing seems too precious to use once I’ve cut into it and made something with it. I actually did go out and buy more of some fabrics that I fell in love with as soon as I used them, and I actually gave away some fabrics that made me want to tear my hair out trying to use them. Well, I made napkins with pieces of it and gave the rest away.

Warning, though: do not engage in this project unless you are prepared to be confronted by the number of blocks you end up with at the end of the year. I just finished the blocks for 2007 and counted them: 685 blocks.”

first, I think Jeanne is right about the 2.5″x4.5″ block being the right size. In looking at the two hanging on my design wall, I realized that the larger one will not really go together very easily, but the 2.5″x4.5″ would go together like Jane Blair’s quilt’s setting.

And, as I said in the post, I really like the idea of knowing whether I will like to use a fabric or not. TFQ made Sawtooth Star blocks, I believe (I am going up there in a few weeks and will take photos of everything she has been working on), so the blocks were more complicated than I am proposing. That doesn’t alleviate the fact that I may end up with over 600 blocks. How many quilts would that make and could I stand to put them all together. I do love to make blocks, so it might make a difference.

I just washed a bunch of fabric, so we will see if I start this. Right now the fabric is laying on the back of my sewing chair. Stay tuned!

Coalescing Ideas

Last year, my good friend, The Fabric Queen, embarked on a project to use a little piece of each fabric she bought all during the year. The goal was to see how the fabric worked in a block, so she could buy more if it worked very well or not worry about acquiring more if it wasn’t optimal for actual quiltmaking. I thought this was a great idea. If I did something similar it would alleviate the problems that I had last year with trying to find old fabrics. It is on my mind, but I haven’t yet done anything similar.

Earlier this week, after reorganizing the reading material next to my bed, I came across a Summer 2005 issue of American Quilter magazine and the cover quilt drew me in and got me to thinking, on various levels about TFQ’s ongoing project with her new fabrics.

Things Change
Things Change
Jane Blair‘s quilt, Things Change, first of all is a really amazing piece of work. The way the layers peel away to reveal another layer is masterful in construction. However, it was one piece of the quilt on the cover that particularly fascinated me. In the upper left hand corner, the artist has placed some simple blocks made up of two rectangular pieces. I am not fond of the colors, but in this quilt, they make perfect sense and Ms. Blair achieves (what I perceive to be) her goal of showing how quiltmaking has evolved.
The thought began to rumble around in my mind that this block might be quick enough to piece for me to actually make blocks using the fabric I buy throughout the year. Then thoughts evolved to the size of the block and the size of the pieces. I haven’t looked it up in EQ6, but it isn’t really such a difficult block that I couldn’t just cut a couple of rectangles and sew them together, however I do think that the ratio of the patches to each and the whole block would be important. It would also be important to determine the right size of the block, so as to showcase the fabric without taking too much fabric or making too much of a commitment to this exercise as a project. I don’t want to make really difficult blocks with 30 pieces. If I do such an exercise, I want it to be simple and effective.

I think that making this rectangle block in a 12×12″ size would be crazy. I wonder if it would work in a 4×4″ size? The patches would be 2.5″ each, so the block would be a finished size of 4″. I suppose I need to fall back on my mantra, made popular in my circle by Lorraine Torrence, “Make Visual decisions visually. I guess this means I need to wash some fabrics!

FOTY 2008 block
FOTY 2008 block
FOTY 2008 #2
FOTY 2008 #2

I sewed a couple of options and it looks like the larger one is better. It is great to be inspired by other quiltmakers. I also like talking about quiltmaking with others and being inspired by our conversations.

Snowball and Fabric

I wonder if blogging can get to be like drinking – too much of a good thing? Well, I hope not, though I do feel a bit hungover at all the posts I have contributed lately and am hoping I am not starting to repeat myself. I haven’t even started to post some of the photos I have taken with my phone. Deirdre should be happy about that as she was looking forward to these “on the go” photos and I have not lived up o the possibilities of mobile blogging. Immerhin!

Though I added one measly block, the Flowering Snowball (Cross blocks) piece looks much bigger than it did last time.

I got a FQ pack of the new P&B Pop Parade from Quilting Adventures. Joyce, kindly, allowed me to not buy some of the fabrics from the line that were not cheerful. I want to make something out of just these fabrics, but I am no sure what. I also neglected to decide on the borders and background and buy extra for those. Oh well, I have a bit of time to decide before they discontinue this fabric, forcing me to go on a web/shop hunt for specific fabrics.

A Bug in My Ear

I bought this fabric sometime in the past, but can’t figure out when or where. I thought it was at PIQF 2006, but it appears in Thoughts on Dots before that, so it had to be some earlier. I looked all through the first half of 2006 and PIQF 2005 to no avail. I gave up. It didn’t matter anyway.

There is a point, in case you thought I wasn’t getting to it, and the point is that when I bought this, I was with TFQ and we only bought a quarter yard, then we split it, which left me with an eighth of a yard. I never know what fabrics will spark my interest, but something about this one did as I used it for Thoughts on Dots and now on the Pineapple. When I was close to cutting the last strip off for the Pineapple, I began to think I needed more of it. I looked everywhere – online, in shops, at shows. No luck. The more I didn’t find it the more desperate I became. This one fabric took on a holy grail sort of mindset for me.

  • Yes, I should use my fabrics right away so I can see what I like and get more of it before it goes out of print.
  • Yes, there is always more fabric.
  • Yes, I should not make myself crazy over one fabric.
  • Yes, I know this happened once before THIS year and JulieZS saved me with the Flea Market Fancy blue.

I did anyway.

TFQ sent me her eighth yard earlier this week, thus the gorgeous picture at the top of the screen and it put the bug for this fabric back in my ear. Wednesday night, in between preparing the feast, I went online and mindlessly put “timeless treasures” basix blue dots into a search engine and was rewarded with an eBay store, Elisabeth’s Barn Shoppe, that had 13 half yards of the fabric (why she counts half yards as one, I don’t know). I couldn’t believe my luck! I bought a yard. I wondered if I should buy more or buy it all, but I bought just a yard.

One quest complete. Unless I decide to buy more.

Fabrics, Blog Fun and Product


I hope the above describes some of my work lately!

I spent the better part of 4 days in Monterey at a conference (for my other life). I have gone to this particular event for a number of years, particularly when it is in Monterey (some years they have had it in Palm Spring, San Diego, etc.). One of the nice things is that I stay with friends rather than staying in a hotel (no late night Law & Order sessions for me!). This year their house was under construction and my friends were sleeping in *my* bedroom! The nerve. They shuffled me off to his sister’s house a bit down the road where I was treated fabulously and helped out as well. Sis’ hubby went in for hip surgery after my first overnight, so I kept her company. I had my own ensuite bedroom and bath. The bath had a heated floor!

Back Porch Fabrics

Back Porch Fabrics is a wonderful quilt store in Pacific Grove, which I have visited and written about before. It is light and airy and the people are friendly. The absolute first thing I did when I got to the Monterey Peninsula was head to Pacific Grove. I didn’t think there could possibly be any dot fabrics I didn’t own, but I was mistaken.
Not only was I able to find more dots (and a few other fabrics), but the lovely Quilts Japan mag as well. There was another issue that I liked, but I really only liked the cover, so I didn’t buy it. The quilt store staff didn’t leave me alone long enough to take a picture of the cover, so I will have to try and find it online.

The quilts they had hanging up were not in my colors, but they went together really well, were graphic and well made and that made me like them. Unfortunately, the staff would not let me take ANY photos in the store. I knew they wouldn’t let me take photos of their class sample quilts, but I wanted to show you some overall pictures of the store so you could get a sense of it. No dice. Sorry, maybe next time.

Sherri e-mailed me and was kind enough to offer the two lovely dots above, which arrived while I was away I’ll need to cut some strips and add them to the piles. I probably won’t be able to use the grey in the Pineapple quilt, but, as I have a few more dot quilts in me, I will find a place for it. Thanks, Sherri!

Finally, I have been neglecting the Flowering Snowballs (Cross Blocks), but sat down in front of bad TV last night and finished this one. I only had the two middle seams to finish, so I can add this to the stack.

I also attended the CQFA meeting today. We spent, probably, 1.5-2 hours on show and tell. It was a lot of tell and that was great. I showed the Nosegay and the sleeve on Sharon’s quilt, which is now finished. Hooray!

I was looking for the Quilts Japan issue when I came across Little Shika blog. It has a Yarnstorm kind of feel with my dogged resolve to show all the steps in a project. (Suppose I should rethink that, e.g. how much information is too much information???) Great photos, too.

Stay tuned for a report on my new iron!

The Baskets of PIQF

One of the themes I noticed at PIQF was baskets.

There are a number of things I like about this quilt, which I think is unusual. First all of the baskets are unusual. I didn’t examine each one separately to see if they were all different, but I think they might be. In looking at the photo I saw a couple that were slight variations of each other, but different enough to be considered unique. This is the kind of detail that makes quilts great and shows that quick quilts aren’t everything.

Second is the setting. The maker (and if YOU are the maker, I will gladly put your name here). This is a very clever way to setting the blocks. It also gives the quilt a lot of movement without buying into the whole primitive wave that is moving through the quilt world.

Third, is the fabric. Although there is a lot of black in this quilt, it does not look depressing. I also like the fabric that she used, especially the different yellows to sash the blocks. Much more interesting than using all the same yellow. The light colored background in the blocks really makes the baskets show up.

Fourth, the size of the blocks put them almost into the GAL* quilt department, but the details are so finely done and perfect for each block, including not adding them when they weren’t needed, that I think the blocks were done out of love and not because the maker didn’t have anything better to do.

Finally, the quilting is great. I think there is a lot of in-the-ditch quilting to keep this quilt together, but the gentle curves of the quilting that set off the blocks in a subtle way are perfect for the overall design.

This is another basket quilt. As you can see, the baskets are also small, and in this example, very girly. I remember the name being something having to do with girly handbags.

The pinks in this one were definitely the strength of the quilt, but notice the lavender that the maker added as the background for one block. I like it when the maker has the foresight and confidence to add a completely different fabric to the mix in order to add interest to the quilt. I think the brown looks ok, but it makes the quilt, overall, look a lot darker.

*GAL – get a life

Visit from Quilting Friend

As I mentioned yesterday TFQ visited me last week. She LOVES fabric. Not just likes, but truly loves. When together and discussing something optional that we don’t want to pay for (parking tickets, etc), we talk about the cost in terms of yards of fabric. For example, “I had better slow down so I don’t get a ticket; that is at least 35.5 yards of fabric.” I find it to be quite hilarious and would love to hear what someone says who overhears these conversations.


She loves fabric so much that she will press any fabric I have not washed and pressed. ANY fabric and she considers it time well spent as she can fondle all of my fabric. A fabric saint, if there ever was one, though I am not allowed to say that anymore.

Over the past several months I have accumulated new fabric (you can look back through the blog to see what it was). I haven’t been very diligent about washing it. I have washed and pressed some, but most was still waiting to be washed when the Fabric Queen arrived. Now it is all washed, pressed and beautifully folded. TFQ pressed it all (see above). We got home from the show and I started shoving loads in the washer and she started pressing the stuff I had washed and had not gotten around to pressing. I have lots of of new dots to use for the Pineapple. YAY!

One of the errands we ran before we went to the show were to go pick up my quilts from the quilter and other quilts from the photographer. I finally got the Nosegay back and above is a detail of the quilting. I haven’t sewed the binding down yet, but it is in the queue.

Fabrics and Flowers

I forgot to mention yesterday that I bought some more dot fabrics at Stone Mountain and Daughter. At least the bottom two fabrics on the right right are from the Katie Jump Rope collection from Denyse Schmidt. KJR isn’t, IMO, as successful as DS’s previous collection, Flea Market Fancy. A couple of the other dots I have in different colorways. As you know I am always on the prowl for dot fabrics with white backgrounds.

Last time I visited St. JCN, I looked through some of her books and found the templates for this flower in Follow the Dots to Dazzling Quilts (another dumb name) by Joan Segna and Jayme Crow. I traced them and brought them home. Lately, they have been calling to me. After I found a whole mailing pouch full of handmade paper, I knew what was in store. While Darling Boy was drawing I cut and pasted. I am still thinking about this layering business. I guess it relates to quiltmaking. I am also still not knowing what to draw, but I guess cutting and pasting is OK, too. I am thinking about cutting out dozens of these flowers and pasting them all over the walls of my hallway until I can get it painted. It is such a depressing shade of life-sucking beige.

New Fabrics. Again.


I couldn’t manage to finish entire blocks over the weekend (remember? I was staring at the screen all day Sunday hoping a blog post would magically appear?). I did get part way through these, though, and it will be a good start for next weekend.

Lamenting my lack of background dots, I was pleased to find that eQuilter had these dots on her site. When I wanted to get Quilter’s Home badly enough, I bought them to make the shipping worthwhile. Unfortunately, QH was not included in my order! What a disappointment! Not sure if it was a shipping error or user error eQuilter is very good and I have never had a problem, so I am betting user error, but I will check in with them. Regardless, I need to find a copy somewhere as I understand there is a SUBSCRIPTION now available YAY!

St. JCN received her fabric, so I can tell you all about Superbuzzy! It is an online fabric ‘store’ (DUH! What else would it be???) that carries Japanese fabrics. St. JCN and I were drooling over the red in basket blocks Jan showed in one of her posts on Be*Mused blog. I left a comment and Jan was kind enough to e-mail me about Superbuzzy. I had never heard of it, but I went there and found that they have cool fabric! It is mostly, if not all, Japanese fabric, yet not all quilting fabric (buyer beware). I managed to find, as you can see, some wonderful dots. I got pieces of the bottom three for St. JCN as well as I knew she was having a tough week and could use a pick me up. One of the reasons that I like the site is that, although it has a small footprint, you can see everything on the screen you are on: your cart, the search box and items. Much less clicking. Check out Superbuzzy!

More Various and Sundry


These are the two hand pieced blocks that I made last week. Different sort of look. Not so cheerful, but not depressing, either. I am not sure what I was thinking when I put the two dot fabrics in the same block? I thought I wasn’t using dots in this piece. Oh well. It is a scrap quilt, so who cares?


More dots.

I went to Britex today to get some fabric for pants. I was on the second floor and remembered that they have quiltmaking fabric. While the girl was cutting my pants fabric, I took a quick peek at the quilt fabrics. Lo and behold! They had dots! Hooray! I picked up the two above. They also had the Robert Kaufman Tropical Pimatex dots in both sizes. I have enough so I didn’t buy any, but it was good to be reminded that they are downtown and do have fabric. DUH!
I also stopped at the Container Store and found these project cases. I have been thinking about something like this since I read Be*mused‘s piece on the scrapbook project cases she found (I looked for the article, but couldn’t find it and can’t find her search button either-DUH!). They are 12 1/2 wide and 17 and something long. I bought two of them just to see how they would work. I filled up one with the Cross Blocks (Flowering Snowballs) + the fabric for the center pieces, which I don’t want to “put away” and never be able to find it again.

I was told today to look at other kinds of art besides quilts to see what I am inspired by. I have some books. I guess I will look at those and see what I see.

I am still thinking about black and white line drawings in a new visual journal. I haven’t done anything about it yet.

The photos of some of the quilts to which I linked (to Artquiltmaker.com) in the past week looked really crappy and I was embarrassed after I posted them. I took 4 quilts including Ocean Ave, Get the Red Out, the Punk Rock Quilt and the Mary Whitehead quilt to be photographed. I want to put better pictures on my website.

The latest baby quilt, which my mom made and I paid to have quilted, is done. It has to be picked up from the quilter soon. She is quilting the Nosegay next.

More Weekend Work

Making strange mixed media works all weekend didn’t feel comfortable to me, so I sewed on Pineapples while the paint and various layers dried. I completed three more side border blocks. I wanted to make three more on Monday, and think I could have done it, but I had to work on the house a bit, so I did that: 2 days fun-work; 1 day: work-work.

More new fabrics. The two on the top left are replacements, but the others are new. Enjoy.

A Little New Work

Wayne Thiebaud said in a City Arts and Lectures * show, and I am totally paraphrasing, that he did his work and he would let history judge whether he was an artist or not. I have decided to take that tact as it makes me uncomfortable to say that I am an artist. As a librarian I know I am creating a library with library services. With quiltmaking, I can’t say if I am creating art. It is one of the types of work I do and one which I enjoy. That is it. If it is art, great. If not, that is ok, too.

To that end, as I mentioned in a previous post, I haven’t done much work lately, but I keep reading and trying to put a few stitches into various projects. Craft Night will be here tomorrow, so I will have a bit of time to make a few more stitches.


Here is my latest Cross Block (Flowering Snowball). I was pleased to receive a request from CamillaKnits for the templates. She has become enamored with the pattern, which is great. I love these old blocks that are not quick pieced blocks and am glad I am spreading the joy. If you don’t have a copy of Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns, go buy one as soon as you stop reading this post. It is great for inspiration (tiling your bathroom?) even if you do not love piecing or blocks.


I also realized that I had not taken a photo of the entire Pineapple recently, if ever. Well, here it is in all of its glory PRE-border. Yes, I have decided to make that maniacal pieced border using the self-bordering technique. I am already lamenting my carefree-ness and all of that lost free time (HA! As if I ever had any). I am gearing up for the long piecing road ahead and the glory of it being finished.


Here, in the annotated picture, you can see blocks blocks 18 and 19, which still have three rows to go. I thought I would put them up there so they would feel like part of the crowd. Block 20 is in the machine and had a stand-in. See that Cross block? The poor block behind the sewing machine doesn’t get to shine at all. I’ll have to haul it out and take a photo of it.

*I adore City Arts and Lectures, but they claim not to record their lectures and you can’t get a copy, much less a transcript to save your life. I even know one of the directors who I begged to ask for a copy of the Wayne Thiebaud lecture. They wouldn’t even give him one. I know they are lying, because I have heard rebroadcasts of previous lectures. Ergh!

Additional Quick Bytes

Work has intervened and I have not had much time to finish blogging my trip to Denver or sew. 🙁 There may be a little time this weekend, but we will see.Although I haven’t worked on the Pineapple blocks much lately, I have been looking at them a lot. I decided that I really like these fabrics. St. JCN says that they are from Timeless Treasures, but they are from at least a year ago and, it seems, nearly impossible to find again. I wish companies wouldn’t get so excited about discontinuing fabric. Alternatively, I need to use my fabric up quicker.

St. JCN has decided to use a bit of each of the fabric she buys in blocks right away. This allows her to see how it works in block, so she can go and get more right away if she really likes it. I think this is a fantastic idea! Another reason it is great is because after awhile she will have a wonderful collection of scrap blocks or a nice scrap quilt.

Another fabric avalanche in the closet. Sigh. I am working on rearranging my dots and it has yielded some fabrics that I had run out of in the Pineapple strip piles and forgotten about. This is nice. It is like buying new fabric without actually buying new fabric.

Other inadequacies… the fabric from Denver is still not completely washed. What is washed (warm colors) is not pressed. The Kaffe Fassett dots have arrived and they are completely fantastic, not only because the colors, etc are fantastic, but primarily because St. JCN sent them WASHED and PRESSED and in beautiful symmetrical little folded packets and I can start using them right away. I will gladly welcome into my life anyone else who wants to act like this. Actually what I need is someone who can be a personal assistant, who will do anything I ask perfectly and without complaining including sending out the invoices to my clients for a very inexpensive price. Dream on, I know.

Please keep reading. I’ll post more meat soon. I have a number of magazine articles I would like to review.

More Quick Bytes

The fabric from Quilt Expressions. St.JCN and I split an order and these are my pieces. They were fabrics which we saw in other colorways at the shops in Denver. We decided to fill out our collections with different colorways. I found some different whites as well.

Fabrics from Quilting Adventures. The three along the bottom right and the one right above the three (with the squares) look like Christmas fabrics to me in person, so I think I will make some gift bags out of them.

Two new Cross Blocks (Flowering Snowball). I finished one and started another in Denver and, then, finished it last night.

Now I have a total of 5 Cross Blocks (Flowering Snowball). I like the way the circle appears when you put the blocks together. I don’t know if I want these particular blocks together, but I am tempted to sew them together in sets of four as I make them. We’ll see after I make a few more.

Finally, these are the last two Pineapple scrap babies. I don’t have anymore scraps and I am almost all done with the blocks I need for a quilt. These are also blocks #18 & 19. Numbers 17 and 20 are in process as well. I feel sad that I am almost finished with the blocks. I am tempted to do a Pineapple border as well. Wasn’t I waxing nostalgic about getting these blocks done and moving on to something else recently? We’ll see.