Tag Archives: fabric

Classes Coming

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I recently started teaching at A Stitch in Time in Franklin, NC. It’s as “local” as quilt shops get for me in this rural area, so I’m very happy to be able to teach there. It’s an excellent shop and I sort of have to work to avoid drooling on the fabric…well, you know what I mean 😉

So here is the quilt I will be teaching in July…

scrap quilt

Scrap quilt made with strips that finish 1″ wide

August…

“Red Pepper” is made from a quilt pattern entitled “Yellow Pepper”

And September…

modern quilt

Happy Squares, one of my original designs

Of course, while I was in the shop I got a little fabric!  This is a specially-printed piece from Hoffman California that has 8 coordinating fat quarters in a 2 yard cut!

There were other nice prints in the series, but I’m a fool for dots.  If you need some, too, you can order from A Stitch in Time (and no, I do not make any money from it; this site is non-commercial).

Have a great week!

 

5 Favorites of 2014

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1. Favorite quilt show I attended: Vermont Quilt Festival.  You can see some quilts from it here and here.  And here again is a detail of one of my favorites:

big stitch quilting

Detail of Fill the Void by Cinzia Allocca, at Vermont Quilt Festival 2014

2. Favorite thing about blogging: Meeting new friends, both in person and online.  Read about a couple of them here and here, if you like.
3. Favorite modern quilt trend: some textures and low-volume prints (those that show more background, having the prints smaller and farther apart)  to get us away from all solids, all the time.  Some of my favorites include these from Carolyn Friedlander:

From Carolyn Friedlander’s Architextures collection

and these from Alison Glass:Alison

4. Favorite new (to me) quilt tool: Frixion pen.  It comes in lots of colors and erases when you iron over the markings.  Only drawback I’ve found is that you can’t see the mark on dark fabric.  For that I still love my chaco liner with yellow chalk.  Show below:  chaco liners on left, frixion pens on right.

5.  Favorite lesson learned:  I’d rather see my designs in print than at quilt shows.  Yes, I entered several shows and contests, and I won something.  But my favorite quilt of the year (from those I made) was the one that was published in Modern Quilts Unlimited.  So here is a picture of it again.Zippy Star 2

And what were your favorites of the year?

Out With the Plaid!

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Several of the blogs I read have been focused lately on purging unwanted fabrics from the stash.  It sounds like a good idea. Mind you, I still think it’s important to have a good stash. But at this point it should be a little more curated than it is!

fabric stash

Lots of stash–how much fits my current needs?

We’ve all got fabric we don’t want. Maybe it was a gift, maybe we’ve just moved past the aesthetic phase in which we bought it, maybe we ordered online and it wasn’t quite what we expected. Whatever. It’s taking up space and heaping on guilt: maybe we’ll need it some day: waste not, want not and all that 😦

There are several things to do with unwanted fabric, including:

  • Donate the fabric
  • Make donation quilts
  • Cut it up small enough to use for its color only
  • Add some fabrics you like better to make another quilt
  • Make something like wrapped clothesline bowls where the fabric will look different
  • Use it for quilt backs
  • One woman even tore her unwanted fabric into strips and made rag rugs.  Yikes!

So here’s my first de-stash: Fabrics that don’t have a nice “hand”, or feel. Maybe they’re cheaply made, but maybe not. Anyway they don’t feel good so I don’t want to work with them.

fabric

My first de-stash pile

And here’s my second de-stash: Plaids. I’ve made multiple plaid quilts and enjoyed them, but enough is enough already!  The plaids will go to my sewing buddies if they want them; otherwise I’ll donate them.

fabric

These plaids have to GO!

So now I’ve put the fabric that doesn’t feel good, and some of the plaids, into my “bad fabric” box to use for tearing strips to tie up my tomatoes, cut into “bridges” for continuous piecing, etc

The discard bin

The discard bin

And what about you? Any plans to de-stash? How?