February Fabrics

  • February 26, 2011 2:01 pm

Here are some fabric goodies I picked up this month. Sometimes my fabric purchases are completely impulsive, sometimes I can drool over fabric online for weeks and run budget numbers for hours before I finally place an order or move onto drooling over new fabric.

Hokkoh Forest

This forest bunny print from Hokkoh is one that I picked up a fat quarter of during Quilt Market in Houston and fell in love with. It looks like a batik and purple is not usually my thing, but sometimes love is unexplainable. My sister may have claimed this as a shirt to be made for herself.

Melody Miller radios & viewfinders linen

More fabric I have been drooling over since Quilt Market – Melody Miller, Ruby Star Rising linen. I had the pleasure of meeting Melody Miller in Houston and she was seriously as cute as can be. This fabric is magical! It is totally retro, but full of excitement and newness- there is quite the online buzz about it. Before I even cut into the radios I knew I had to have more of this print and there may or may not be some already on its way to me. This heavier weight linen/cotton blend is my favorite fabric to work with.

Fat Quarters - Tammis Keefe & Farmdale

Fat quarter stacks are my weakness. These were a total impulse purchase from Stitch Lab. Everything was on sale (These were actually $9) and I had been wanting the Tammis Keefe cats & dogs print since, ahem, Quilt Market. The Farmdale prints behind it is from an Alexander Henry collection featuring chickens that I have also wanted forever, but since they seem more like fabrics just for me and less for “the shop” I have avoided the indulgence. I totally need to hunt down the chickens and more of the others now though before they become the dreaded HTF OOP fabrics (hard to find, out of print).

Kona Cotton solids

Another score from the Stitch Lab, Kona Cotton! There is a little Kaufman Carolina Chambray in Jungle up top there. I can not get enough of Kona cottons. I use them as lining for bags or for patchwork. Kona is kind of like Pantone where you can guarantee a shade/color so now that I know that Kona Tomato goes great with the radio fabric I can go back and get more tomato without fear of it ever being HTF or OOP. This sounds simple, but when dealing with fabric designs it can be tough to think of fabric as just fabric and not ‘the last piece you may ever have of this print’ fabric, which sometimes happens even when you least expect it.

People often compare a fabric stash to a painters palette, but imagine if you will that new paint colors were coming out every week and old paint colors from a year or two ago were impossible to buy anymore! Do you think there would be paint hoarding?Sometimes when you see a must have fabric you have to buy at least a little bit, because it is true you may never see it again. The internet has both helped and hindered this just like with all collectibles. Sure you may be able to find it, but you will pay a premium for it being ‘rare’. Just something to think about if you ever wonder why some people (like me) buy so much fabric. No, there will never be enough, there is no end. I am not in search of the perfect fabric that will end my fabric buying quest. In the sewing world your possibility truly is limited to what fabric you have. Fabric has potential and possibility to become almost anything, but no fabric (or the wrong fabric) is a terrible thing that I don’t want to even think about. I have heard accusations of China currently hoarding cotton, which is an excuse given for the current rise in cotton prices, but that is another post entirely..

My Favorite Apron

This month I also visited an estate sale for the first time in foreverrr. I really didn’t buy much, a box of vintage zippers and a couple art prints, but as I was sorting through all of the sewing stuff I came across this paper envelope with the owners “favorite apron” pattern. I was intrigued and had to have it. The lady running the cash register didn’t even charge me for it- I wasn’t about to convince her it may be a possible treasure. I have to say I am a little disappointed that the pattern may not be MY personal favorite. It has a racer back style assembly (?) and honestly I am not sure I could decipher the pattern pieces as they have no lines and weird holes punched in them. Aprons have been on my mind though and I am thinking of making some as gifts or as possible new items for my shop. Perhaps out of the Nani Iro linen showing above?

Sod Cabin Quilt

  • February 10, 2011 9:37 pm

2.5" x 44" strips of fabric

Here is the fabric I used for a quilt I made for Ruben & Maria (my older brother and his wife) for Christmas. This quilt started with the dark brown sprout fabric. It is actually called Maple from the Timber line by Jessica Levitt. They are maple seed pods, but to me they looked like a little plot of soil with some sprouts coming out! When I saw this fabric I bought a couple yards knowing that I had to make something for Ruben & Maria. They are organic sustainable landscapers in Eugene, Oregon and kinda do with plants what I do with fabric (talk to it nicely and then cut it into submission).

I knew I wanted to see the sprout fabric in rows, so I decided to use a Log Cabin quilt block. Traditionally log cabin quilt blocks have a red center to represent the hearth of a home, but I was really in love with the blue fabric you see above that I had bought on a whim at Stitch Lab. It is a very girly rose print  by Jennifer Paganelli from her Flower Power line for Freespirit. I bought it because I was in love with the aqua colors, but it hung around in my fabric stash for a while being decidedly too girly. From there I stuffed it full of Tula Pink fabric, which I have been doing a lot lately.. I knew Maria liked this lacy butterfly print (the light brown) because she had actually picked out a fat quarter cut of this in another color when we found ourselves in a mad dash to buy fabrics once in Frederisckburg, TX.

Once I had a couple fabrics that I knew for sure I wanted to use filling in the rest went pretty quick, although knowing that I had at least a couple yards of each was part of the decision making process. I sewed a couple test blocks and gave the OK to cut up all the fabric into the 2.5 inch strips you see above. This part can be hard if you don’t have a plan! A lot of time in quilting can be spent before you even touch the fabric- just thinking about what you are going to do with the fabric and how you need to cut it. So after cutting came a lot of time sitting at my machine with my iron ready and waiting right next to me- stitching a few rows and then ironing the seams flat. Every time you add a ‘log’ around the center you have to iron it flat before adding the next log, lest your structure be wonky. Sometimes when wonkiness or color is not a problem you can speed through everything I just said and just cut up the first fabric you can find quickly and sew it together with maybe some scraps. Check out this Wonky LogCabin Tutorial from Tallgrass Prairie for a good view a the block making process.

Furrows

I got through making several blocks and stuck them up on the design wall to see where it was headed. I had planned on doing the rows design that you see above, but at this point I was somewhat disappointed that I hadn’t considered the contrast between the 2 brown fabrics to be too much. The dark brown was making this step effect instead of the straight rows I had expected. Time to re-arrange the blocks! One of the great things about the log cabin block is how versatile the layout can be:

grid

squares

plus medallion

sun medallion

This final layout is the one I ended up sticking with. I felt it took advantage of the dark brown structure the most. It also convinced me to keep the quilt square even though I had 3 extra blocks that I ended up not using. I sewed all these rows together and ironed it all one last time. I bought a few yards of espresso Kona Cotton, which is a nice dark brown, and I pieced together a scrappy strip of some of my favorite browns blues & greens to go down the center of the back. Then I made my quilt sandwich and stayed up late one night with Mum basting it with 200 safety pins. This time I used a method of basting that involved rolling the top and back onto separate boards and rolling them out as I got it pinned. This method worked really well except for the fact that Mum’s help was needed.

quilt ready for binding.. almost.

This quilt was pretty small – 60 x 60 inches so it wasn’t too hard to quilt on my machine. I bought a big spool of aqua thread (the last one was waiting for me at the Quilt Store!) and quilted in a simple diagonal pattern. I felt it needed additional quilting but at the time was thinking more aqua thread would be too much, so I went to another local quilt shop, Honey Bee and bought a big spool of dark brown thread to stitch in the ditch of the blocks.

The result is a lovely little quilt that Ruben & Maria were very pleased to receive!

detail of quilting

binding and quilting detail

I had enough of the aqua rose fabric left over that I decided it would be the perfect binding and I am soo glad I did. I think that may be my favorite part of this quilt!

embroidered label detail - Gina Pina 2010

Here is a shot of my name and the date that I embroidered on the back. I feel it is always important to label and date your work, even subtly. I do feel bad for that poor horse that got his head quilted through. The Heather Ross pony fabric up there is another one that we bought during our Fredericksburg  shopping spree! Also the snails above it Ruben & Maria bought from Spool in Portland, Oregon as a gift. There are always lots of little details like that hiding in quilts.

Sod Cabin quilt back

Here are Maria and Ruben holding up the little quilt! It was so nice to have them in Austin for Christmas. We only get to see them about once a year usually so we always try to make the most of it. This is the scrappy back I made. Another shout out to my sister Rebecca for helping me decide what to do there. I always like the back of quilts to be as cool as the front.

Sod Cabin quilt front

They may have to fight for space under this little quilt, but fortunately they have other handmade quilts from Maria’s family in Wyoming to keep them warm too. Quilts do take quite a bit of time and effort to make, but it really is the perfect gift because it is functional art that will last a lifetime that is full of love and personality! I want to find the time this year to make everyone in my immediate family a queen or king sized quilt. Hopefully I can manage to do that and also keep sewing enough to keep me fed!

Right now I am trying to combine my patchwork addiction with my bag making skills and have been working on some new designs and products that I hope to be photographing and offering online. Fortunately custom orders have been keeping me busy enough this winter, but unfortunately that means that my product stock is currently very low! I would love to get it back to craft show levels, but at the same time I love working on something that I know already has a home.

In the meantime, check out my flickr stream to see some fun quilt a long blocks I have been doing for the Bloggers Block A Palooza! It has been a nice challenge to get a couple mystery block designs to complete a week and then see how others have made the same block. The Flickr Pool is full of fun stuff!