adventures of a quilting diva

Does this ever happen to you: after buying a wonderful piece of fabric at your LQS, you bring it home only to find out that you already have it in your stash?

As you can see, this very lovely Wildwood for Free Spirit/Westminster print caught my eye not once, but twice. Guess I must really like it!

Keeping a book of fabric swatches in your purse like the 3×5 card notebook pictured here (which I haven’t updated since 2003) can help you keep track of your fabric stash when you’re out shopping.

Just cut a little piece of fabric from the corner and stick it down with a glue stick. You can write any pertinent info next to the swatch such as manufacturer, date of purchase, the store, how much you bought, what you need to go with it, etc. You can also arrange them any way you wish: color, style, designer, project, and so on. This is my 30s repro swatch book.

If you’re a pre-washer, then washing and ironing your new fabric right away is one way to burn it into your memory (just don’t burn the fabric itself). Using the fabric in a quilt is another good way to help your purchases stick in your head. Alternately you could just spend a whole lot of time admiring the new fabric, but unfortunately you’re not going to make very many quilts that way.

Welcome to my new old blog!  Almost everything from the old blog is here, except for the Google Friend Connect Followers widget, which I’m still trying to figure out in WordPress, and the RSS feed, which I haven’t tried setting up yet.

Today’s fabric selection is a fun folk art vine in autumn colors. I won it at my guild meeting last week. (woo hoo!) There are some great ideas in this fabric for easy coordinating applique and free motion quilting designs.

I don’t know about you, but I’m really into vertical designs these days (like the layout in my basket quilt). Usually I would think of this as columns, but I’ve only heard quilters use the terms vertical rows, or sometimes bars. I wonder why that is?

I almost forgot to post my Fabric Friday today. Continuing with the leaf theme, here’s my sun-painted silk. I used Pébéo Setacolor Transparent on China silk, with real leaves and little round pasta for the designs. Yes, it really is that pink. Not very autumnal but it makes a great scarf nonetheless.

Setacolor is a fantastic fabric paint. I love their colors and the silk comes out very soft. Check out the Pébéo website to find out more about Setacolor and how to use it for sun painting.

I’ve heard that you can sun paint inside with a bright light instead if it’s cloudy or the wind blows all your leaves or other stencils away, though I haven’t tried it indoors myself yet. It’s nice to know there are other options if you get inspired for a little sun painting but the sun won’t come out to play.

Today’s featured fabric is Under the influence of fabric by Quilt Country, Sara Tuttle & Sandy Brawner. What a great print and a great title! Guilty as charged.

This would make a great border for a quilt made of spool blocks (Read my post, Muse Monday: Inspired by Thread). It would be fun to try to practice free-motion machine quilting on as well.
Thanks for all your wonderful suggestions on what to do with my frog fabric. I’m loving all your creative ideas!

Today’s fabric comes to you from my stash, a cotton denim weave from 1997. These fabulous frogs are so much fun! I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this fabric. Any suggestions?

Here’s a fun little batik that I used just last night to make a binding for an upcoming workshop sample. What’s great about this design is the way the curly vines dance and flow across the surface of the fabric. You could follow the lines for a terrific (and easy!) free motion quilting pattern. The design is subtle enough to be used as a very interesting almost-solid background or border, but not so subtle that it’s boring. If you cut it into small pieces for piecing or applique the pattern stands out more. And when you cut it really tiny (like for that 1/4 inch binding) you get the best little blips of color.

Speaking of color, I love its vibrant and unique color palette too! Not just magenta, but burnt orange and violet are swirled throughout the background with the pale pink, peach, green, and blue leaves on top. Don’t those leaves seem to glow? You could use this batik just about anywhere. Sure wish I could remember where I bought it! =(^_^)=

Today’s fabric shopping spree consisted of 10 beiges/taupes. There was not a chartreuse, magenta, or orange in the lot of them. I’m getting better at stashing neutrals now. It’s actually quite fun. Most of these will find their way into my my hand-pieced star quilt.

Above is a Civil War print from Windham Fabrics. It’s one of three Civil War reproductions I bought today. The organic feel of this one caught my eye. It’s not what I usually think of when it comes to Civil War prints, but then again I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. The other two are very Civil War-looking: a indigo-on-beige floral and a black-on-beige floral/polka dot stripe.

I’m not ready for a whole new fabric obsession, so for now I’m going to stick with just the reproductions that I think will blend with what I already have in my stash. Someday though, it just might become an obsession.

Here’s a fab black-on-white sewing machine print fabric from Marcus Brothers. I just love black & white prints. They make bright colors pop and can work with subdued shades as well. Give it a try. A black & white print might be just the fabric you need to add contrast and interest to your next quilt top.

For a great idea on using black & white prints, check out the BOM at Citrus Belt Quilters. They’re doing a log cabin with half different colors and half black-on-white prints. The finished quilts are going to look fantastic!

If you haven’t visited the Marcus Brothers website lately, they have a great collection of free quilt patterns and craft projects on their Make it with Marcus page. I especially like the Scrappy Dots wallhanging. That would be fun to make with brights and black & white!

Here is a whimsical French Provençal fabric from my collection of French charm squares. I love its lighthearted hand-drawn feel.
French Connections is one of my favorite vendors at Road to California. I’ve been collecting their fabric for several years now and am currently deciding what kind of quilt to make with my charms. What’s not to love about great African and French fabrics and those fantastic African baskets! If you are not lucky enough to live near Pittsboro, NC, you can visit them on the web and check out their new online store. French antiques and African arts, crafts and jewelry round out an eclectic and delightful mix. If you’re planning a quilt show trip to round out the year, don’t miss French Connections’ booth at the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza XVI or Quilt Fest Jacksonville in September or International Quilt Festival, Houston in October.

Here’s a fun vintage cheater cloth I discovered at a thrift shop a few years ago. It’s a coarse weave fabric, similar to feed sack material, but this is new yardage. (as in not used … would that be new old fabric, or maybe old new fabric?)

I like the variety of patterns this fabric has. There are not only the usual tiny calicos, but some larger scale prints as well as different colored plaids. My favorite pattern on this fabric is the one with the red fruit.