Sunday Stash - and I won again

I'm on a bit of a hot streak lately, it seems. It wasn't too long ago that I won the gorgeous little bundle of novelty prints featured here, and what do you know but only a couple months later I win a fat quarter bundle of Kona solids from the Sew Sisters. I couldn't be doing better if I tried (even if I am drowning the winter schedule a little this year.)

The bundle contains four gorgeous greys - in Silver, Shadow Pewter, and Shale. These are gorgeous greys, and as I tend more toward grey than blacks and whites I know I'll adore working with these. Perhaps even better, these will work perfectly in a quilt I've been planning for awhile now, and collecting fabrics for over the past year.

 

I have to say, I'm feeling downright spoiled rotten.

The solid and greyscale colours rather brought out the worst in my photography, but such is life. I'm still thrilled with my new fabric - especially as I've just entered new project territory (more on that soon).

Linking up with the lovely Molli Sparkles for Sunday Stash.

Sunday Stash - Christmas Additions

December saw a lot of additions to my fabric stash, which perhaps explains why it's taken so long to showcase the lovelies I was lucky enough to receive for Christmas. My mom's way of doing Christmas is an awful lot like a wedding registry in that we all submit lists of things that we would love to receive, which are then distributed across the family. Of course everyone regularly goes off list, but given that I'm the only one in the family who gives a hoot about fabric this system is the perfect way to ensure I get a couple little fabric beauties for Christmas.

nine beautiful half yards of fabric and a new ruler

I knew that I'd be getting fabric from my momma for Christmas right about when a piece of squishy mail arrived addressed to her. Let me tell you, it was hard to not peak at the name of the sender to see which shop it had come from so I could figure out what, exactly, I would be getting ahead of time. I learned my lessons about snooping as a kid, though. I like Christmas morning to be a surprise. (Although Bunny gets an out on that - we each choose a main present together.)

My mom kind of knocked it out of the park with this gift. I don't know about you, but I can't think of anything much better than a half-yard bundle of the Corsage line from Alison Glass's sun prints. Yeah I'm spoiled, spoiled rotten. Especially since she snuck in an Olfa 24 x 6 ruler.

such saturated colours

Pretty much everything about these fabrics is wonderful. The colours range from lovely and muted to rich and super saturated (almost neon).



pinks and purples!

and lovely soft colours

These will probably be the last stash additions for awhile. My next few purchases are going to need to be backing and batting fabric, and I already have everything but the backgrounds for my next two projects on hand. So I'll have to settle for petting these pretties. Do you think Bunny would notice if I snuggled them in bed? They'd get wrinkled, so I won't. But I want to.

Pink Mosaics

Not to long ago Rachel at Stitched In Color announced a mosaic contest, and I can't really think of anything that sounds more fun than window shopping and putting together bundles of fabric. I mean, seriously, I do that because I'm bored and fabric is pretty. The theme for this particular contest is pink, which is a colour that I enjoy but that's pretty easy to overload on and I tend to shy away from using. Even when I find pinks I love, it gets hard to find the right pink. Challenge accepted, and now it was time to find a great combination of pink fabrics. And, since we can enter up to two mosaics, I had to do it twice.

First up I decided to go way outside my comfort zone and go for bright pinks and use yellow as a high contrast accent colour. I realized after the fact that this matches a bubblegum pink and yellow blanket my best friend kept in the living room when we lived together in university. Not necessarily a colour scheme I'd keep in my home, but certainly a fun one.

The second mosaic I stayed a lot closer to my comfort zone; starting with pinks that bleed into purples. Looking at it again I'm wishing I'd either removed the purple-and-green fabric, or added another green in there but I'm mostly happy with this. I was surprised at how many Anna Maria Horner prints I was drawn to for this - while her work is beautiful her fabrics can feel intimidating to work with just in terms of showing off their prints.

If you haven't joined in on the fun yet the link up is open until midnight January 23rd, so there's still a couple of days left.

Sunday Stash - Squared Elements

These beauties I'm about to share are the last of the order of fabric I made last month that I've been slowly revealing. I try to make my dollars stretch, and fabric purchases have to come out of my allowance so unless I have a project that needs fabric NOW I try to limit myself to an order every other month or so and these are the last from my most recent splurge. And these Squared Elements I couldn't wait to get my hands on.

I'm pretty sure I love everything about Squared Elements. The simplicity of the colour/white patterns. The slightly wonky grid layout of the squares. And depending on whether the white is the grid or the background changes how the whole pattern comes off.

For the most part these were stashed with projects in mind.

Eggplant and lime are the primary colours in the quilt I plan to make for my bed in that one-day distant future, so I've been picking up prints I like in those colours whenever I see them. Purple's a favourite colour, and the bedroom is the only room Bunny will tolerate it, so purple was a must have. Why lime? I'm still not sure, other than the fact that I love the contrast a rich purple against a lighter green gives.

The others? Well, I've got my reds collection building up for my brother and the black was just stashing. Black/grey/white prints have been really drawing my attention lately and I think before I know it I'm going to have a lot of those in my stash. They're useful, though, and I loves them.

The effect of the whole stack is just delicious to me. Can't wait to get my hands on more of these beautiful blenders.

Linking up, once again, with the ever excellent Molli Sparkles and Sunday Stash. I can't wait to see what everyone else has to share.

Sunday Stash - Sun Prints

Making me a happy quilter lately has been the growing nature of my stash. I still have a few prints to show off from my last delivery, and I think I chose some great stash builders. I'm still doing a lot of my buying around the colour scheme for two projects I have planned; one uses reds and blues. Those colors are pretty heavily represented here.

various sun prints

Following along the blog hop this summer for the Alison Glass Sun Print collection I couldn't help but fall in love a little bit. I was being choosy with my order, and only picked up a few prints but if I had unlimited buying power I'd have my hands on the whole collection. You might be seeing some of the other prints soon, thanks to some lucky Christmas gifts.



I think the orange is close enough to some of the reds I've got stashed that it will go with my brother's colours. These should make some adorable flying geese blocks. Colour wise, the purple is lighter in real life, but the orange and blue are pretty accurate. Purple was actually a bit of an impulse choice, but it's a good one.

Of these two my favourite is by far the bike path. My computer screen hadn't shown just how pink the part streamer print would be, so while I like it a lot I don't have any immediate plans for that one.

That's the orange feathers against the red party streamers to give a colour comparison. I didn't count for how pink the streamers would look in person but I'm sure I'll have lots of fun with it in other projects.

There are still a couple prints from this order of fabrics there that I haven't shared, though they should show up here in the next week or two. And maybe some Christmas gifts that I'm a little over excited about. Next time, maybe?

I'm linking this up with Sunday Stash over at its new home with Molli Sparkles.

Sunday Stash - Joel Dewberry True Colors

The other week was kind of amazing. First, my lovely novelty fabrics were in the mailbox Tuesday night when I arrived home from work. Then, early Wednesday morning, after I'd started my day at work but before Bunny had left for the shop the mailman delivered another squishy package. Early enough that I got text message heads up and spent the day at work agonizing over when can I go home and play with the pretties, and it may have earned me a few odd looks when I skipped down the hall to the bathroom.


When you have these beauties waiting, though, who wouldn't skip a little?

I'd been drooling over the True Colors lines for awhile, and while I like prints from each of the designers I find the Joel Dewberry collection is pretty far and away my favourite. So when the Intrepid Thread announced that their Black Friday sale would be for 30% off I just couldn't resist. I'd heard good things from across the internet about the Intrepid Thread and opening my package I was duly impressed.  Tissue paper packaging, a little bow, handwritten note and some little charm square samples? They have my business for sure.

I'd spent the week agonizing over which my favourites were, as I prefer to buy half yard cuts and wanted to limit myself to buying no more than 9 yards of fabric due to shipping. (That's not nine yards, as you can probably tell ... there will be more fabric to share later.) I really couldn't be more pleased with my choices.

Isn't that wood grain luscious? The purple has already been allocated to a specific project, but the others will be great to have on hand.

I was a little disappointed the yellow herringbone was out of stock, but I'm also happy with these. Pretty much I love that pink more than anything - it's so rich and saturated.

These two were the surprise of the bunch. I mean, I ordered them so I knew they were coming .... but somehow in my head the scale was much smaller. I think I may order more of the damask in other colours for backings. The deep pink scroll I almost didn't buy (thank goodness the yellow herringbone wasn't in stock!) but it's kind of become my favourite of the bunch.

Linking up once again to Finding Fifth for Sunday Stash. :)


Sunday Stash (the lucky me edition)

A few weeks back I won a giveaway from the lovely Sharon who blogs over at Fabric and Flowers for a gorgeous little bundle of novelty fabrics. Of course, I've been anxiously checking my mailbox since then until earlier this week (on Bunny's birthday, no less) I came home to a squishy package in the mail. After squealing a little and jumping up and down (because I'm clearly a twelve year old) and putting my coat away, I got down to opening up the little bundle of goodness.



aren't they the sweetest?

I see lots of fun with these fabrics in the future. Next time I have a baby quilt on my to do list these fabrics are going to come out very quickly - I see the sweetest little boy quilt, with a little bit of red and blue solids and blenders for settings and sashing.



 

 

 

Maybe some fussy cutting with these would be adorable. Rocky mountain puzzle or economy blocks could be sweet. And the faces! I love the little faces on the two prints just above.



I don't mean to play favourites, but ...
 

The only thing that makes me luckier is that another package arrived in the mail the next day, but you'll have to wait and see what's inside.

Linking up with Finding Fifth for Sunday Stash. (though for some reason blogger keeps eating the code for the button. But I'm done arguing with the internets and would rather go to the aquarium.)

brick and mortar fabric shopping

The other week Bunny decided that he needed to go buy some outdoorsy things at Le Baron in Mississauga, which is a bit of a drive, and asked me if I wanted to come with. A day in a car with Bunny is better than a day at home without him, so of course I said sure. Then my little brain started percolating. If we were heading in a southward direction to begin with it seemed like maybe, just maybe, I should make him take me to a quilt shop in Toronto that I'd been eyeing for awhile. I'd have to amuse myself in a camping store, so why not have him amuse himself in a fabric store for a spell as well?

It was a good call, because I couldn't have been happier with our experience at the Sew Sisters Quilt Shop. It didn't take more than a moment or two after walking in to be greeted and given a general overview of where things were, after which Bunny was swiftly offered a chair. He jokingly also requested a beer and a hunting magazine ... and well, what do you know?

somehow this is the only picture we took

Somehow this was the only picture that was taken while we were there, because I was too busy oohing and aaahing and trying to make up my mind about what to buy because it was all so pretty. The selection definitely appeals to a mix of quilters, I think, not focusing too heavily on any one idea. There were lots of basics, lots of Kona solids, batiks, 30's prints and some nice modern fabrics. There were a few prints I was kind of hoping they'd have but wasn't expecting to see but I definitely was happy with the bits of stashy goodness I brought home.

I was shopping with a purpose: masculine reds and blues for my brother. I've got his quilt mostly planned, and I've decided I'm doing very scrappy flying geese. I think I did pretty ok - I got two half metres that I'm quite happy with, seven fat quarters and a remnant.



In the back is a little remnant from Once Upon a Storybook - .2 of a metre for $1.40 so I just couldn't pass that up. Then there's three fat quarters that were on sale for $1.75. None of them have selvedge, so I'm not really sure what I have there but they all work within my palette. Then I picked up fat quarters of Sketch in red and blue, and as well as Stockholm Hexagons. I prefer buying larger cuts, really, but knowing the project these are intended for a fat quarter was enough. The half metre cut on the bottom is Lost and Found by Riley Blake - on sale! Then there's the red cobblestone fabric, which is Red Glass from Light Fantastic.

Speaking of that line, you might notice one fabric up there that's just a little out of place. It was so pretty I just could not resist coming home with it.



it needs some ironing, and a plan

This beauty is also from Light Fantastic, simply called Butterflies Purple and I'm in love. I almost wish I'd bought more it's so yummy I just don't know what I'm going to do with it. The collection has this wonderful stained glass look and I just want to eat it up and snuggle it and maybe roll around naked in it. Oh wait, what? It's really pretty, and I simply had to bring some home, even if I don't have a plan.

These reds and blues together with what I picked up in my last spree from the Fat Quarter Shop, I may finally have enough masculine reds to tackle a my brother's quilt at some point soon, though I'll need to pick up more solids. Which maybe means next time I buy fabric I can start rounding out some of the other colours in my stash ... or buying more fabrics for the eventual bedroom quilt.

happy mail

So last you heard about where I was at with the quilting, I was contemplating the purchase of some additional fabrics to go with the turquoise for my niece. It needed more contrast. So, I set her wild on the Fat Quarter Shop website, showed her what I had in mind, and told her to go ahead and pick any two fabrics she liked that she felt would go with her quilt. Then, since I only needed a half yard of each, I added in some extras I thought would go with her choices and picked up some fabrics for future projects. After that it was just get my hands on the credit card and wait.

Last Wednesday was practically Christmas morning in our house, as the fabrics arrived even before I woke up.

So what all did I get? I shopped with some sense of purpose and with the plan to spend exactly $100 so I could get the most out of my shipping money. The first priority was fabrics for my niece but after that I have two projects in mind. My brother will be next on my list and he's asked for reds in his quilt, and there's a red-and-blue quilt featuring many, many flying geese percolating around my head for him. Then there's the Swoon I'm planning for Bunny and my bed eventually, featuring eggplant purples and greens.

Excusing the mess in the background, I got all of this

I had a pretty good haul for my brother. Masculine designs and fabrics are hard to find, but I found some cute prints and interesting geometric shapes. I think a semi-improve flying geese quilt will do exactly what I need it to.

For Flying Geese

these houses are my favourites

The next fabrics are really just for me. I mean, Bunny has to like them, but who am I kidding. They're mine.

perfect colours, and from some of my favourite lines

Then, because I figure I'll always have a use for them, I picked up some neutrals. Apparently I like black?

more houses!

I also might be developing some favourite designers and fabric lines ...

such as V and Co (I really should have picked up the Ikat Diamonds in eggplant too)



and Sweetwater (I pretty much want the whole Road 15 collection)

Then, of course, there's the pile of fabrics for my niece:

The purples she chose ... and the wrong side of the turquoise I'd been using

 And the black and grey print will also feature, just a little, in her quilt.

for accent blocks. I love the damask and honeycomb prints.

That's probably enough gratuitous fabric pictures for one day. I should have updates on the actual quilt top in the next week or so. I've definitely already cut into the purple solids and started playing.