Fabric Noms!

So many delicious fabrics lately! I am stoked to get to stitching! I am doing a Mystery Quilt, so I visited Fabric Depot's Clearance Room to find light, medium, and dark coordinating fabrics for that. I think my picks are a bit different (and less traditional than what lots of people seem to be using!) but I'm pretty happy with it! I actually just found the medium and dark in the clearance room, and got the light from the main store (Kona Azure). With a coupon, of course ;)

Then, the week after that, I realized I had some money to shop at my fave online store, Fat Quarter Shop. I hit the clearance fabrics hard! I also found an awesome pattern on clearance that I had to have. I don't think I've ever bought a single pattern, usually go for books or get free ones online.

 Suzette Aqua Wandering Vines, Lush Creamsicle Tossed Leaves, Lush Turquoise Stargazer, Twirl Twisted Orange Twirled Swirls

Twirl & Shout Plaid in Whirling White,  Going Places Green, and Blowing Blue

My relatives were in town last week, and even though they'd all already sent me birthday cards/money in August, they were sweet enough to gift me with more cash! I actually had a paycheck that covered my bills, so was able to use the birthday money for fun money. And to me, fun money should be spent on fabric! In addition, one of my aunts paid for my purchase at Joann (4 yards of batting, 3 quilting magazines, and a mini donut tin to make goodies with the nephs!) Gotta love that!

I hit Fabric Depot and found a couple things in the Clearance Room

Large dots, flowers, and stripes in muted sherbets and browns! And a few Fat Quarters I couldn't pass up.

This

Laura Gunn is definitely one of my favorite designers...Poppy, Lantern Bloom, Magnolia Lane. Yum! I found these and loved them before I realized they were Laura Gunn!

These are Painter's Canvas in the Magnolia Lane line, Laura Gunn for Michael Miller

The colors did not come out very well, I think you can see them better here~

And in this last pic you can see I also treated myself to some Michael Miller Ta-dots (Turquoise, lime green, and pink). The yellow dots are from another line. The top fabric is the lovely Needle Pins  (gray) from Aneela Hooey's Sew Stitchy line. Then the bottom is an yellow print and another in orange that I had to have.

And, I haven't received this last one yet, but I found it on my Pinterest and found some on Etsy, so ordered two yards. Kitchy Kitchen Ric Rac Coral by Maude Asbury.

That last one reminded me of one of my all time faves that I am still holding onto a couple yards of~Erin Stripe from Michael Miller. It's an awesome blender and I imagine the RicRac will be too!

Really, the only other fabric I am super lusting after right now are the Momo Tiny Deer. And I blame Kim for that.  And maybe some other Momo in general ;)

My first Dresden

I made my first Dresden Plate for the latest round of the Invite Your Partner swap on Craftster. My partner had some on her Pinterest and one of her comments on it was that she thought a pillow would be nice for that design. Done and Done! She liked purple, green, and blue, and to start with I was pulling fabric in all of those colors, but then realized I could easily pull together 20 different green prints from my stash without expending too much effort. Not sure if I should be proud or ashamed of that

I used the Easy Dresden Ruler to make these, and it was definitely very easy! A nice neutral dark gray for the backing, and I was pretty pleased with how it all came together. I did a ton of quilting on it, more than I usually do. Initially I was going to do more quilting in the gray (outside the Dresden) but I stopped with just one line and decided I liked it that way.

ETA: Here's two close-ups of the quilting that my partner took. I couldn't find mine.

Since making this one I've made two more dresden plates with holiday fabric. I'm going to finish a third one and make a holiday table runner!

Phoenix Quilts Charity

Phoenix Quilts is dedicated to sending quilts to people who have lost their homes in the wildfires. We're talking 750+ quilts! I think this is a wonderful project and want to get some of my quilt tops finished and sent out! I need to get some things wrapped up around here before I send in my commitment!

Would you like to help too? Phoenix Quilts

Craft Blocked!

No, I haven't lost my crafty mojo due to a drying up of ideas, but because I've been super busy with other things (mainly, taking care of my nephews) and my sewing room being torn up. My brother needed my sewing room table back to fit in his new, smaller house, so I am currently needing to clean the room to fit in the large computer desk which he gave me. Meanwhile my sewing machine and current project(s) are living on my dining room table, but I haven't touched them for over a week.

I've also missed the last many, many quilt guild meetings, which bums me out, but by Thursdays I just feel exhausted, and if the weather is bad (per usual in Portland), I definitely don't want to do down and fight for parking in the Pearl. And, even though this is my third year with the guild, sometimes my social phobia rears its head and I freak out about going.

What am I "working" on? So many things! Most importantly, two baby quilts for my cousin and a crocheted ripple afghan. I'm also pattern testing a crochet pattern for a friend, and have a swap going on C-ster that I am making a dresden plate (my first dresden!) pillow cover for, and also maybe a mini quilt and mug rug. Ok, making my list has actually gotten me excited about my projects again, and make me want to get in and clean up my craft room so I can get back to making!

Here's one block from the second baby quilt. The first one just needs to be basted (my least favorite part of the quilting process), quilted (second least favorite part) and bound (my fave part, along with piecing!). I have two blocks done, and most of the Half Square Triangles completed. I may need to make some more as I get near the end, but I ran out of some fabric so am going to wait until I need it to see which ones I need to cut. Or I might decide to put some solid large squares in at that point. Or giant HST? Who knows!

Novelty Fabric Swap!

I think I mentioned a couple posts back that I am running a Novelty Fabric FQ Swap over on Craftster. Our Gallery is here if you want to check it out. Click on "show images only" to filter out posts that don't show sweet fabric goodness.

The way this swap worked was that I partnered people in groups of four, and each person bought 1 yard cuts of 4 different fabrics, and cut them into Fat Quarters, and then sent one FQ to each of their partners, keeping the fourth set for themselves.

So far, I've received some awesome fabrics from two of my partners!

I love the deer fabric! It's awesome!

100_5086 by maremare312, on Flickr

100_5087 by maremare312, on Flickr

And the hand-dyed fabric!

100_5088 by maremare312, on Flickr


The penguins are too sweet, I will have to hide this from my youngest nephew or he will want to "go night night" with it.

100_5090 by maremare312, on Flickr

100_5089 by maremare312, on Flickr


We're already talking about another round of this swap, possibly with holiday fabric as the overall theme. If you might be interested, be sure to create a Craftster account now if you don't have one already, as you must be a member for a month before you can sign up for a swap.