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.

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.

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! =(^_^)=

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.

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!

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.