saturday stash confessions

for "gypsy wife"

 this is neither sunday (for stash sharing) nor am i catholic (so i don't go to confessionals), but there is a whole lot of stash to share and confessing to do today. two months ago i signed up for the fabriholics anonymous fabric fast with rebecca lynn and jess. last month i did make a few small purchases, but stayed within my personal allowable buying guidelines. this month . . . um, i fell off the wagon.

no, actually i took a FLYING LEAP off the wagon, nosedived headfirst into fabric purchasing within and well without my limits. so now i'm here with my tail between my legs ready to fess up and examine my neuroses. (but still smiling about the finds, sicko that i am.)

two factors are at play here - i started two new projects last month and my daughter got into my stash. both of these events pushed me over the edge. i mentioned before that my quite sizable stash was mostly purchased in my early, frenzied introduction to designer fabrics and quilting, before i knew what i was doing. that means my stash is large, but unvaried and with many gaps in it. however, a raid of etsy, some favorite on-line shops, and a trip to my local store solved my "problem".

enter new project #1 - the sugar block club with monthly block.

January's "intentions" & February's "mercy"

i pulled off a lovely january block, all from stash, and managed to find more coordinating fabrics i liked for february, also from stash. but i wasn't as happy with my fabric placement. i had a pretty good amount of the fabrics i was using, but decided that since i was going to use some of them in each block, perhaps i should purchase more of those fabrics. the green alexander henry farmdale crosshatch was a purchase i made a few years ago from cia's palette and i wasn't sure i could find it anymore. fortunately for me, she had some still in stock, and had it in a few other colors, too.

so now that crosshatch can carry across the quilt. very nice. but it was the leak that started the dam break.



i already had the farmdale crosshatches and florals, the meadowsweet plaid, and some great polka dots, pictured at top. but not enough for an entire quilt. looking over my stash there just wasn't anything else that had the right colors and feel for these blocks - sort of a sugar-sweet vintage farmhouse thing. in hindsight, why i needed to get the fabrics now rather than waiting til the fast was over is beyond me. all i can think of was that i was already going to the store for project #2, so i shopped for both. oh, yes. i only had a 1/4 yd of the green "comma" cirlces that i was using as my second neutral in the blocks. "comma" is moda and that means it couldn't wait until july.

that trip to my local shop fixed me right up with some bits of "scrumptious" from bonnie and camille for moda, denyse schmidt's "shelbourne falls" blue tile, and a bit of "sasparilla" from riley blake (red tile/fan), which all were the right colors and rounded everything out perfectly. also, i was able to get some yardage of the "comma" circles.  this sugar gal is set now (fingers crossed).

but back to that dam break at cia's palette first.

 golly, i hate breaking open her packages because they are just so prettily put together. she folds them perfectly and wraps them with cute vintage labels.

 the top pink floral print coordinates with my umbrella girls from alexander henry's "april showers" line, so i grabbed it while i was there. the crosshatches have already been discussed. then i hunted around for some pieces for "gypsy wife", aka new project #2.

gypsy wife is a super-scrappy project. ms kingwell, the designer, recommends "the more fabrics you include in your quilt the more fun it will be." i already had a good 30 prints pulled, but i noticed there wasn't much red in my pull and i want a lot of red in this quilt. in my book gypsy = red. also, after completing the first block, i could tell i would want a few more quiet background & blender fabrics.

red is my favorite color, so i was shocked to find so little red in my stash. cia had a few finds for me. i think that red matroyshka (alexander henry zhivago - nadya) print is going to be killer in the gypsy mix. the other two red prints with lacy designs are perfect also. in addition, i found a couple blender prints.

finally sewn together properly

looking at my first block, i decided not only that i needed more reds and background prints, but i was going to want more lush, complicated florals like the joel dewberry and heather bailey prints i had used. my design sense and appetite just started growing and growing.

 cia always includes some nice cuts of newer prints with each of my orders. i'd never have picked out this goat fabric, but i think it is dead-on for my "gypsy wife" quilt. i'll probably fussy cut one of those goats for a block the way i did the elephant in the "colour wheel" block. but i'm going to have to cut out those bitty skulls. i just don't do skulls.

the opening photo of the post is the stuff i found for gypsy at my local store. there's not a lot of red there, but it's all i could find.

we've covered all the purchases i made to round out my newest projects. i can pinpoint the reasoning behind all the buying for these. my stash just didn't match my desires for these quilts with enough fabrics to complete the projects. so on the one hand, it was the type of buying i was allowed to do. however, doing so much of it at once, especially after making some purchases last month, was icky feeling. i didn't want to want more fabrics but i also didn't want to make the quilts less than i wanted them to be. so i bought.

if i'd stopped there, perhaps i'd have been okay. but then i let my 11 yr old daughter pick a few fabrics out of my stash to make a baby quilt for a church fundraiser. and she picked my only pieces of some rare heather baily "nicey jane" prints. i was really torn about letting her have them until it occurred to me that i could just replace them with some on-line shopping. i'd already broken my fast - in for a penny, in for a pound, right?

also, as i began searching for them, i realized that these prints are becoming hard to get; that what's out there isn't much. and they are some of my very favorite prints! i'll admit i sorta paniced and just grabbed what i could. over time, i have used heather's prints a lot and grown to appreciate them so much. really, they suit my taste and my style perfectly. prints i had passed up before i could now see uses for. the thought of missing out on them was unbearable.

 the main print i was mourning was the "church flowers" in pink. every time i looked at my daughter's picks, i decided i loved this print more and more. heather didn't have any more for sale on her site, but etsy found me 3 yards. that should be ample.

 etsy also produced this lovely blue and green set of "nice jane" prints in one yard cuts. i've already used 3 of the prints in projects, but didn't have any of the "hop dot" in that pretty ice blue. now i do.

 on heather's site, i found several "nicey jane" and "pop garden" prints that i either didn't have or wanted more of. I've realized that these two collections are my perfect colors. i do like "lottie dah" a whole bunch, but the reds, blues, yellows, and pinks in her earlier collections are so very me. a few of these i plan on working into "gypsy wife" and the others i just needed.

so i'm really quite blissful to have all these heather bailey fabrics. it wasn't as if i was chasing after the "latest and greatest" thing going. i was buying up tried-and-true, proven-with-time, almost-gone-now fabrics. but it rather bothers me that i wasn't willing to just let them go. really, why do i need these fabrics? what's wrong with my psyche that i had to have them? this is somewhat troubling to me.

also, the whole time i was shopping, i was feeling greatly guilty because i knew i was going to have to publicly confess to my transgressions. that hurt my pride. i didn't want to have to eat crow in public. i most certainly do want to fabric fast because i think it's smart, sensible, and responsible. but maybe it's just not for me? if i keep starting new projects it's very likely i will not be able to go any length of time with out more purchasing. that's not smart, either. even my kids know that. they keep telling me, "mom, you need to finish what you've started before you start anymore quilts!" and they are right. so i guess it's time to buckle down with my blinders on so i don't get distracted and tempted even more. i have enough projects to keep me busy for months, probably even the whole year.

which is why i definitely didn't need to buy this pattern from cia's palette. however, while i was there, i went ahead and added this to my cart because i do eventually, way down the road, want to do some text quilts. no sense paying additional shipping later on, right?

i. am .hopeless.

but i'm dusting myself off and starting over again. there's no sense in not trying to improve.

oh, sugar! i just remembered there is a package on it's way from fabricworm.com that has nothing to do with any of these purchase reasons mentioned here. it had everything to do with making fabric mosaics for the color intensive course with rachel at stitched in color. after all that picking, i wanted the fabrics. bad, bad, bad.

we're back to "i'm hopeless."