stashing, a lot

bundles from penelope handmade - jennifer makes the cutest bundles

when i get sewing a lot, i also start to order fabric. it just goes hand-in-hand. if i spend a lot of time in my sewing room around my stash, i begin to notice things that are running low or that i don't have. 

or, when i'm working on a project, often i'll feel the need for some additional fabrics to round out what i'm making. like these bright liberty tana lawn pieces (below) that fit the vibe i wanted for the new "groovy liberty" quilt.

duckadilly fat quarters of liberty

i didn't realize when i ordered that yellow colorway of d'anjo that it was actually a larger-scale version of d'anjo, called d'anjo sky. i really like it! i'm going to use it in my "suny yellow crossroads" quilt, too.

while i was looking for these bright and groovy pieces, i found some others i like and a few that fit other current projects.

the pink capel is a backing for "lemonade at sixes."

joel dewberry classics

i recently discovered that hawthorne supply company has on-demand printing for many designers. i was thrilled to find some classic joel dewberry designs i've used a lot over the years in new colors. that green! the "quilting cotton" substrate these are printed on is thick and a little rough, not exactly what i was expecting. but i really like the colors of these great prints.

ruby and bee blenders by heather ross

i'm actually a little unsure about these. they're really bright! and the style is kinda different than heather's typical prints. but i'm going to trust heather knows her fabrics and will see where they work in my stash. i didn't get the whole set, just the ones i thought would fit my stash best.

 low volume blenders from lori holt's new americana collection

these are perfect low-volume blender prints. they are so useful. when i saw lori had a new collection, i looked it up specifically for these type prints. winners!

i got some other nice blender pieces from lori's "bee vintage" and "bee dot" collections. i like the ditsy little prints. i was a little surprised that most of her low-volumes i got have a soft, cool grey undertone to them. they're not white or cream, they are a barely-there grey. this affect how they read in a quilt and it's overall mood, which is something to keep in mind.

i got half yards of heather bailey's "pop sweet" blender set. yes, more blenders. i truly believe good blenders are what makes quilts work. they play the supporting role that allows feature fabrics room to shine. there is a range of soft and bright fabrics, classic basics and more modern, punchy prints in this set. it has a little of everything.

bundles for "bonny" and "pretty things"

 i've had my eye on denyse schmidt's newest collections for a while. i finally decided to get bundles of each collection. i've already broken in to them for the greens to use in "lemonade at sixes."

goodness, that's a lot of fabric! some of it i'm already using and the rest is going in the stash. 

serendipitous piles

 

another online fabric order of fabrics i randomly picked from one shop on etsy that, when arrived, strikes me as a great fabric combination for a quilt.

i love this grouping so much! i think this spontaneous syncopation happens because when i'm scanning a shop for any other items they carry that i might like, i often have certain projects in mind or specific types of fabrics i'm looking for.

backup a bit - i usually find myself shopping for fabric online when i'm on the hunt for a specific fabric i want. either i've seen it somewhere or i need to restock something i didn't have enough of/want more of. i go to etsy and search the desired fabric. when i find it, i also scan the shop for more items i might like because i'm going to be paying shipping as it is and i might as well get a little more fabric in that envelope, right?

so when i'm in this situation, the fabrics i select are going to be influenced by what the shop has to offer/their style, and any projects i might have in mind at the time. also, i am always on the lookout for good low-volume finds and basics/blenders.

considering these factors, i guess it's not really a surprise that the resulting bundle often goes together well. it's happened to me several times. sometimes i have to edit out one or two of the fabrics or add more in if the pattern calls for more, but in general it's really fun to come up with an idea for a seemingly random pile of fabrics that happen to look great together.

i've made a number of quilts from piles of fabric gathered in this way, more than i realized:

this pile of fabrics i purchased from anna maria horner's nashville shop, craft south, on a visit there the weekend she opened the store became a single block, improv log cabin. i was just picking things i liked when shopping at the store. it wasn't until much later at home that i considered that they actually looked good together.

"twelve south" is still in the "to be quilted" queue

this pile of heather ross fabrics was sitting on my pressing table for a long time. i don't remember how it got there, if it came together from a single order (very likely) or if i put the heather rosses from one r a couple order(s) together with the intention of filing them away later. either way, i kept looking at it until i decided to just make a quilt from it.

this is another log cabin quilt (i definitely had my log cabin era), still in the piecing phase.

this golden book-looking pile was a big online order that said, "pretty please keep us together!"

on mother's day weekend 2021 i made them into an aunt bet's by frankie and ray.

in early 2020, i put in an order to fat quarter shop for some yardage of these various solids. the box arrived at my house just as the world shut down and the pandemic kicked off. 

i hadn't ordered these for a particular quilt, just to stock up on some colors i was interested in. but i quickly decided they would be made together in a commemorative quilt, a house quilt i call "shelter in place," to mark the difficult but beautiful time our family spent together in quarantine. i'm still working on this one.

i saw someone else's all-solids christmas tree quilt and decided to use these same fabrics (i had plenty) to make a merry and bright christmas quilt i call "bright forest." status - still piecing.

maybe you recognize this pile from another online order because it recently became a finish. i took out two of these prints (so glad i took out the green sprig print!) and supplemented with a couple more.

i've come to really love "fall paint lake," which now mostly reminds me of our time in malibu while my son was getting medical help in LA. i think of it as our beach house quilt, not a lake quilt. i have no idea where the pattern designer came up with that name. but i can't rename it now. or can i? it still isn't labeled.

that's a look at piles becoming quilts. what should i do with my new pile?

friday night sew along

 the lovely and brilliant sarah schraw of sarah quilts thought up this wonderful idea for any sewers at home on a riday night: why not sew together by sharing over instagram? yes, it's out now. i'm on instagram. but only because of liz. she's too busy to blog or email much anymore so i have to stalk her on instagram if i want to keep up any semblance of friendship. but i don't advertise that i'm there because 1) i definitely overgram, 2) i'm certainly not worth following 3) i don't want my usage of it to get out of hand so i have been laying low. but this is off topic. pretend you didn't hear anything.

back to friday night. on sew along night, people check in and post what they're doing periodically with the hashtag #fridaynightsewalong. the first one was last month. i wasn't sure how it was going to work or if it would feel like we were really sewing together but it did! it was really a lot of fun. also, i got more done during that time than when people are here in real time and i just chat my head off.

it went so well that sarah's promoting and participating the first friday of every month now. this past weekend was the second official friday night sew along, although people do use it any friday they want to.

so what did i do during friday night sew along?

 i spray basted "penny patch"! amazing, huh? it's a sandwich now. all stuck together and ready to quilt. i've had the top and backing laid out on the floor or hanging from the balcony railing ever since thanksgiving and was tired of moving it around every time a need arose. after i gave dogwood quilting a shot last week, i've been itching to get this penny up off the floor.

firstly, i spray basted using 505 instead of sullivan's this time. it went much better. less mess, less smell (almost completely none, actually), and it just went smoothly. i can see why people like it so much now. i'm not a total convert yet, but i did want to give the much-touted 505 a go. i chose to try it on this particular quilt because of the quilting pattern i was going to use. i couldn't think of an effective way to pin out of the way of the design so i tried the spray.

i did read in a book recently (quilting with a modern flair) that there is new research which indicated spray basting may shorten the life of the quilt, but that's all the book said. no reference, no reasoning, just the statement. unsubstantiated rumor, i call it, when nothing is cited. however, it has given me pause on the spray basting front once again.

 i had to run a child somewhere during my sewing time. when i came home, there was a package on the doorstep! a big, fat box of black-and-white, aqua, lime, mint, and turquoise prints from fabric.com. i was in love with a recent quilt made in these colors by rita of red pepper quilts, so i ordered a selection of half yards. sure wish they sold quarter yards, but they don't so twist my arm - i bought the half yards since that was the only option. actually, i love the color scheme of this quilt but prefer the layout of the one she made just before it in hsts, which included a corner in this palette.

a few people have asked me how i found this pull on the fabric.com website. it was pretty easy, actually. if you look at the menu bar on the lefthand sidebar of their home page, there is a "quilting fabric" link. click on that and several filter options will appear to help you find fabrics. i used the "color" filter to specify the colors i was looking for. i still had to scroll through dozens of options, but it helped a lot.

yes, this means i broke my fast in april. i'd already broken it for some liberty fabrics from queen bee fabrics and a stop at my local shop for a new baby quilt idea. i'm one of those illogical people who think, "well, i've already messed up, might as well go for broke while i'm at it." may is a new month and a reason to recommit. seems like i'm on an every-other-month schedule. that's improvement, to a degree. although when i was at the local shop, one of the gals at the counter, who happens to read my blog occasionally, called me out on it! hi, amy. linking in my honesty with rebecca lynne's april report. my downfall was ignoring all my own good advice about avoiding temptation.

again, i digress. after i'd opened my happy mail i got back to "penny patch". i had to decide how big to make the petals. i was tempted to go the size of the medium patches, which would have been soooooo fast. but not looked very good. so i started marking the grid for the small patch size. it took so much longer than i thought it would. it was killing me because i just wanted to knock out the darn quilting. then my baby brother and his wife called and asked if i wanted to meet them at the temple for the evening, so i dropped everything and ran. quilting was done for friday.

saturday i was going to get to that dogwood quilting but my oldest daughter was feeling poorly and asked me to hang out and watch a movie with her. she wanted some mama comfort. i was a little put out, but just switched gears and bound quilts while watching some bbc dickens adaptations all afternoon. and i actually finished "taite"! d2 hasn't even noticed it's done. she's been using it ever since christmas with the binding half done, anyway. jill and i are going to celebrate our 3 yr finishes with with a proper photoshoot later this week, so i'll share the real finish photos after that.

that sums up my weekend sewing. hope y'all had a happy weekend, too!
linking up with lee's wip wednesday at freshly pieced.

gettin' craftsy and some discount links

wowsers! this weekend i was introduced to the world of craftsy.com and i have been sucked right in ever since, practically living there the last few days. if, like me, you've never heard of craftsy, it's this fantastic on-line diy classroom platform that offers tons of on-line classes by many industry leaders. the array of topics and line up of teachers is impressive. and i discovered a few deals on classes, including free ones, that saved me money, too. (i've highlighted my savings tips in red through out the post.)

i found the classes on friday, signed up for a couple, and spent time on and off on saturday in my courtyard enjoying the extremely pleasant spring weather and watching classes. it was awesome because i could stop and start whenever i needed to do something or give my kids attention. what a perfect way to spend a saturday.

i got to go to class in a beautiful, comfortable setting without driving anywhere or doing more than showering and throwing on some comfy clothes. since i was adding new projects to my roster, i also dug out my quilt patterns to sort through in an attempt to organize all my projects i would like to do. that list is getting out of control.

 the classes are designed for you to work along side the teacher, pausing whenever you need to. however, i like to watch everything first to get an idea of how it's going to go and also picking up any tips offered along the way to put into immediate use on my current projects since i won't be doing the new quilts just yet.

just an atmospheric shot of how wonderful my courtyard is looking right now - heavenly!

i found my way to craftsy through camille roskelly's blog announcement of her new class, pre-cut piecing made simple. i was intrigued by her description of the class and all the quilts she promised to teach us to make, so i linked over to craftsy for a closer look. her link, by the way, includes a 25% discount for the class, so definitely link through her if you are interested (or try here).

when i found out her swoon quilt pattern (above) was included, i was sold. i've admired swoon ever since she introduced it, but figured it was well beyond my skill level. however, having recently taken on the half square triangle with my garden paths quilt, and discovering that swoon was composed of HSTs, with camille leading me through each step of the quilt, i knew i could do it. so i signed on. the reviews from other class members also helped encourage me. camille really does share a lot of information as she goes.

the classes are really well put together, making watching enjoyable and informative, too. also, the platform for the classes is awesome. i've never experienced anything like it on line. here's what craftsy includes and how it works:

• unlimited, lifetime access to classes, 24/7, so you can watch and create at your own pace, whenever, wherever, over and over again, for as long as you want. years, even.
• ability to take notes that are recorded on a timeline allowing you to sort of bookmark spots in the video that you can refer back to  - very cool.
• you can ask questions of the teacher, which are recorded on a timeline of the class as the notes are. she answers them back pretty quickly, not always immediately, but in my experience so far, within a few hours or at least 24. i'm sure this will vary as time goes on.
• 30 second repeat that allows you to keep repeating a video segment until you feel you have mastered the content
• class projects photo gallery for sharing and viewing
• downloadable class materials lists
• 100% money back guarantee

i've found the classes quite easy to access and use. the only problem i've had is some pausing, but another student recommended turning off the HD button and it's been smooth sailing ever since.

craftsy offers many absolutely free classes that allow you to get a feel for how it works. you just create an account and put it in your cart. i picked up some classes on trouble-shooting with your sewing maching, quiltcon lectures, and some block of the month classes. all free!

a money-saving tip here, when i signed up for a craftsy account, my introductory welcome email gave me a link to get any class for $25, a nice savings since most classes are $40 or $50. i used it to get elizabeth hartman's, of oh, frannson! blog, class inspired modern quilts.

elizabeth also offers the free course, creative quilt backs, which i watched friday night. it was truly wonderful and got me so excited for how well the classes are put together and run. the free classes do not include instructor input, but they do still allow for input from other class members in case you have questions.

the last paid class i signed on for was free-motion quilting a sampler by leah day. and, another money saver: if you link from leah's site, day style designs, she offers a 50% discount on the class, making it only $20! (if you click on my 50% discount link, it might work for you - otherwise, try linking through leah.)

there were several free motion classes, but this looked like the best over all choice for a beginner. i am still desperate to learn stippling so i can complete taite. this looks like it's going to help. i also chose it because leah offers tips on how to quilt large quilts on a domestic machine.

yesterday, my husband took all the kids to the zoo, so i had some time to myself. i took the pins out of taite since it needs to be resandwiched and watched part of leah's class for ideas on how to get a better sandwich. leah explains herself very well. she has some very unique methods for quilting! she also has many special product recommendations that are supposed to help with your FMQ. i might invest in some of them but i'm not ready to go for everything she does just yet. so far, i don't think i'll be using her sandwiching and basting ideas. i have yet to decide if the class is really going to be helpful to me or not. the good news is that if i decide it really isn't for me, i can get a full refund from craftsy.

each of the teachers i have watched have been superb at delivering their lessons. and the line up of celebrity instructors is rather dazzling. some of my other favorite designers and crafters that teach are vanessa christenson of v and co, meg mcelwee of sew liberated, and master baker peter reinhart, author of artisan breads everyday and the bread baker's apprentice cookbooks. i'm totally drooling thinking of these classes, but i'm going to pace myself.

last but not least, craftsy also sells fabric, yarn, books, etc, at a discount in their shop.
and when you sign on for a class, it usually offers you related class materials at a significant discount.

craftsy, you are awesome.
i'm looking forward to a long and happy relationship here.

now i gotta go sign back into my class.

soho, purl and makie

 the mr. and i took an 18th anniversary trip early this month to nyc. we've been there once before, nearly 15 years ago when i was 6 months pregnant with our first. we went on a whim for 2 nights with no real idea what we were doing. that was a fun trip and opened my eyes to why everyone loved new york so much, an affinity i could never fathom until i'd been there.

fast forward to this trip and we had lots and lots of ideas of what to do. one of my secret wishes was to visit purl soho in real life. i've ordered from them once or twice and dreamed of browsing through in person, but knew better than to suggest we spend any of our precious trip time in a fabric shop. especially since i didn't think we'd be anywhere close to it on our planned travels.

however, when the mr. said he wanted to check out soho's ironwork district and find lunch there, i saw my opportunity. "do you think maybe, if we happen by it, i could pop into this shop i've always wanted to see?" he actually said yes! when we exited the subway in soho, i googled purl and it was .3 miles away. after lunch (and a lot of reorienting ourselves with our phone maps) we managed to find purl.

as the name would indicate, it's primarily a knitting shop. however, they do have a selection of fabrics (wool felts, linens, liberty of london, organic and imported cottons, etc) that is nothing like what's available to me locally on the almost-west coast.

i am not, nor will i ever be, a knitter. but their cute little gal sitting at the counter by the door spinning yarn and their mouthwatering selection did sorely tempt me. even the mr. saw a sample or two that he deemed, "cute - very cute, actually," almost in a "why don't you make one of these?" way. he was such a good sport that he took the camera from me and unasked, photographed me in the shop.

oh, yes, i was walking around with that sappy smile on my face. these are totally candid shots he took. what a sweetheart! after taking a few snaps of me, he said he was going to check out the place next door. i was alone and free at last! no hubby hanging over my shoulder questioning what i might pick up or purchase. 

 i thought about how much daughter#1 would have loved these hand puppet kits, but at $18 a kit, i knew she could just as well make up her own original softie, probably even just by looking at the photos.

 box of shiny flosses and some lovely mixed-color mettzler threads unlike any i'd seen before.

there were even a few quilt samples on the wall. purl offers classes by the likes of heather ross and denyse schmidt. maybe next time we go (the mr. wants to make it an annual trip now) i can arrange for a class. that would be dreamy.

this basket of vintage-looking offerings caught my eye. i thought they must be finds from old linens. but when i turned one over, i thought, "of course!" liberty of london 1/2 yards. just gorgeous and soooo many choices. i selected only 3, due to the cost, then kept browsing. my picks: mirabelle f, poppy and daisy j, betsey a. i'd been inspired by some adorable softies i'd seen in another soho window while hunting down lunch and thought these might be perfect for softie bits.

 next i spied the scrap bags - another perfect softie find. i really loved that blue bag on the left, but decided on the reds because it had some neutrals in it that would make good softie faces or limbs. i was looking at that bag of oranges and yellows in the front when my mr. walked back in, completely surprising and flustering me. i'm not sure i meant to buy both scrap bags, but i was unnerved at seeing him again so soon. he'd been gone all of 5 minutes and i already had an armload of fabric. he was bored and i needed to get moving, so i made my way to the front to pay before he could object or look too closely at what i was holding. unfortunately, he also walked up to the register with me and heard the total. i had to remind him that i hadn't even hinted at wanting anything at tiffany's the day before and that i really would prefer fabric from soho. he got over it quickly enough.

a parting shot from purl: an adorable baby cardigan. sigh. oh, speaking of babies, the one other fabric purchase i made was a set of organic cotton 1/2yrds to make either a quilt or 4sq for the baby we're hoping to expect soon. i didn't photograph it yet: browns, ginghams, elephants, linens. baby but very soho.

the other shop i mentioned stumbling upon as we tried to get our bearings while searching for lunch was this tiny gem:

just an itty bitty storefront window display and a white door. but the dangling softies were what caught my eye. i am still a sucker for softies and these were as handmade charming as they come.
i was stopped dead in my tracks. the mr. was half a block ahead and turning the corner before he realized i wasn't keeping pace.

looking down below the softies, there were some lovely fresh flowers and a small but sophisticated selection of handmade baby items. the whole scene just oozed newborn softness and elegance.

 the bunny lady was my favorite. i think she might have liberty ears. see why i was inspired by those 1/2yds and scrap bags? i neither wanted to or needed to spend $85 for a softie when i could make my own souvenir from soho.

 the mr. backtracked to me and admired the 100% cotton fur booties while i drooled over the silver polka dotted bib. he offered to go inside but i knew that was pointless. i'd fall in love with some $100+ baby item and want it for our daughter. better just to dream from the window and photograph.

i stepped back to see the name of the boutique, then searched the front over a minute before finding this one small hint hanging from twine in the door window:

MAKIE. and nothing else but the address and website. oh, yes, a website. so now you can browse and drool, too. without hopping a plane to soho or even leaving your home screen. enjoy!