finished-buying-fabric friday?

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fabric, fabric diet

Does that count as having finished something, having bought ALL the fabrics?

YES, right?

Suffering from sewing block this month nearly killed my fabric budget for the rest of the year, in a big way. Above is a photo of my haul from Sew Fresh Fabrics. Peg holds weekly sales (that you will only hear about if you follow Sew Fresh on Facebook), and several weeks ago, she put her whole sale section on extra 40% off. You know what was in that sale section? Many of the prints from Flea Market Fancy. I was doomed. I added in a few other irresistible prints, including an Andover text print and 1.5 yds of Summerlove (Ruby top, anyone?)

These low-volume Comma, Architextures, and Madrona Road text print were not on sale, but shoot. I keep running out of these prints because I use them just all the time.

Pink Castle Fabrics is also running an insidious series of promotions they’re calling Deal of the Day. You sign up for the daily email, and then try every day to resist the awesome treat they’re offering at a spectacular price. I’ve caved a modest three times. One low-volume bundle:

One solids bundle:

(sidenote: we all think Brenda pulled this solids bundle to coordinate with Tule, right? Because look:)

And I have an $8 shipped spool of white Aurifil 50wt coming. Aurifil: I won’t FMQ without it.

Stash Modern Fabric is one of my new favorite shops (since I picked up some Koi voile and white Waterfront Park prints a couple weeks back). When Michelle of Factotum of Arts, a dear blog friend, celebrated her one-year blogiversary several weeks ago, she surprised her top five commenters with an Etsy gift card. Michelle is an Etsy artist herself, and I thought this was a wonderful giveaway that gave me a lot of choices for how to treat myself. So duh, fabric, from Stash Modern Fabrics. I’m going to say that Michelle treated me to these fabrics for a Super Tote:

and, because Stash Modern does free shipping over $50, the rest of this just…fell into my cart whoops:

Finally, remember that shopping cart fulla fabric I posted on Monday? I was at this surplus and salvage store (“It’s grosser than Big Lots!” I crowed to my husband) called Mardens, located in Maine. Amy, our SMQG president, arranged for our group to get 10% off our purchases on the day of our September meeting. Ima do the math for ya. Designer fabric at <$5/yard ($4.49 seemed to be what most of my choices were labeled), plus a 10% discount = crazytown.

There’s a piece missing, some Anna Griffin I bought to make a fall Washi for myself.

So there you have it. Trouble. Now I’m busy trying to cut and sew it all down into a stashable pile–and I’m even busier trying to resist the Pink Castle Skinny Sale this weekend. I’m officially on a fabric diet until Lizzy House’s kitty cats come out. Officially.

P.S. a bonus: Lucy cruised through as I was taking these photos and saw my camera. She asked me to take her picture PLEASE, and then sat still, smiled sweetly, and looked at the camera. She hasn’t done this since she was six months old.

My hope for decent Christmas cards is renewed.

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photography skills, or, just enough to be truly dangerous

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fabric, plum and june quilt photography workshop

When Beth at Plum and June started writing about her Quilt Photography Workshop, I knew I was all in. I’ve struggled mightily with my blog photography. I know the quick shortcut of taking my finished quilts to gimmicky outdoor locations, but I have a lot of dirty little photography secrets.

The first is that before today, I’d only used my entry-level (Sony alpha-series) DSLR on auto no-flash mode. Yep. I can hear you clicking “unfollow” from here. Above is a fabric stack, shot how I’d normally shoot it. Auto no-flash, natural light, in my bedroom, afternoon sun.

Here is the same fabric stack, shot after having switched my camera to Aperture Priority mode (A), which allows me to tinker with a few things but doesn’t QUITE set me adrift like Manual mode does.

(For the record, here’s what I got when I switched to Manual.) (I don’t know which buttons to push to make it not do this.) (No, I don’t know where the camera manual is.)

I kept taking photos, tinkering with three main things: ISO, exposure, and aperture. Much else is beyond my skill set at this point.

I think you’ll find that many other people in the link-up can provide many more technical hints than I can. I strongly suggest you visit around this month’s Quilt Photography link-up for specific suggestions re: camera settings. Beth herself has a pretty good post up with specific tips.

What do I bring to the table? I really love to stage a photograph. I love combining a fabric stack with other things, and I love to see what kind of mood I can draw into a blog post simply by putting my fabric stack somewhere different.

First of all, here’s my setup. My main tip is to find a camera angle that leaves out the mess. Really. All that crap was around everywhere, in every single photo I took.

YOUR SPACE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE CLEAN TO MAKE A GOOD PHOTO. You just have to know how to…frame things. Pull right up on that fabric pile. Get in its face.

(I’ll solve the “why is this yellow-looking?” problem eventually, right? Advice-givers: any ideas?)

One of my favorite things to do is put a fabric or yarn stack right in a sun spot, partly in shadow, and take a photo. Sometimes this turns out bad. Sometimes it turns out great. I love this shot of Tule.

Here’s Tule with some thread. Thread not in focus, Tule in focus. Love it.

Fabric + yarn is another one of my favorite combos. The yarn is The Plucky Knitter Primo Fingering in Buzz Lighter.

Fabric + wine? (and perfume?) Buddy. (I promise no day drinking was involved, I put my glass right in the fridge for dinner later.)

My favorite, though, turned out to be fabric and books. No surprise there. I dashed through the living room and pulled “white” books, piled them up, and got this:

I had a ton of fun taking these photos, and playing with the settings on my camera. I encourage you to try your camera on a more flexible mode, and play around a bit–every one of these photos is straight out of my camera, and I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, but I’m quite proud of several of them. Don’t let yourself be hampered by the no-clue thing. Play around, keep trying, and be proud of what looks good to you. Even if you don’t know what white balance is. (ahem)

Linking up with Beth’s Quilt Photography Workshop. Head over and check it out–many quilt bloggers seem to be photographers first, and there is a wealth of real information to be had.

12/12/12

Tags

fabric, lizzy house, stash up

Back in October (maybe, MAYBE, the first day of November?) I ordered Lizzy House’s 50 fat eighth bundle from her holiday shop. It was a bit of an impulse buy; I have PLENTY of new fabric to cut up, and I had already indulged in a brown Liberty Lifestyle bundle “for my birthday.”

I knew I shouldn’t have done it.

But today, this came in the mail.

 

And? I cried. On my unmade bed, in front of my piles and piles of dirty laundry, which are functioning as quite effective metaphors for my life right now.

While Lucy, Nate, and I are fine, there’s some serious baloney going on in my background right now. To beat it all, it’s 12/12/12, and my 29th birthday. I’d always said I wanted to have a huge party on 12/12/12, a celebration of the best time of my life. The cards just haven’t fallen that way. I’d be happy if I could sit quietly on my sofa tonight knitting, instead of trying desperately to control a situation I’m 800 miles away from, and unable to help, much less control.

I had already decided these would make a good toddler big-girl bed quilt, and am even more sure that’s where they’re headed. The way I cried over these? They’ve got to become something great.

Today, I’m grateful for a pop of beauty, for a rainbow of good design, and for the possibilities of the future. And for 29 years on 12/12/12.

some ‘splaining to do.

Tags

fabric, quilts, sewing

Wow, when you stack it all up like this, it looks like I might sort of have a problem.

 

Needless to say, Stash Up 2012 is complete. This is a lot of fabric, yeah. No, I don’t really have an excuse. (Except that I did get it all on sale, on clearance, with a coupon code, or a combination of two of the above, pinky swear.)

Yes, I feel totally stashed up, prepared for Christmas crafting and the year of sewing ahead of me!

 

This little pile to the right of the main “stash rainbow” is a couple of little scrap bags I picked up from Pink Castle Fabrics when they ran their 20% off bundles sale a couple of weeks ago. Best. Fabric. Purchase. Ever. These are WOF scraps ranging from about 3” to 8 or 9”, and every last piece is good stuff. No uglies. I’m planning a scrap vomit quilt for early 2013, so even uglies would have been fine by me. But no, I got some FMF 2012, a piece of 1001 Peeps, some Aneela Hoey, some Lori Holt, Pezzy Dots, and that GORGEOUS piece of Anthology Maya right in the middle. (Have I mentioned that I immediately hit Etsy and found more yardage of several prints from this line and I have 4.25 yards of that still coming?) Scrap bags. Do it NOW.

 

And now I feel like I have my favorites from every line of fabric that came out this year. Seems it was an extraordinarily good year for fabric, and there has been so much to pick from that I haven’t been able to catch everything that I wanted. I got some Madrona Road (though not that Memoir print CURSES), Field Study, (more) Seaside, Hope Valley, and was lucky to find a few Pearl Bracelet prints on Etsy.

Whew. Forget ‘splaining. Somebody has some sewing to do.

it’s a sickness

Tags

crafting, fabric, quilts

Here’s a stack of fabric I pulled for a fall project. I’m thinking chevrons, the design element of the year! In little leftover bits of repro fabrics! I’ve been meaning to pair those pinks and yellows for years, and the green and orange just go along. I bought most of these fabrics when I first started quilting years ago, and feel ready to use them up.

Last night I dreamed that I had the *perfect* idea for my Flea Market Fancy 2012 stack (that has been carefully stashed in my closet since April). I woke up and the idea was, of course, derivative. And I don’t want to copy anyone’s idea for this special fabric, I want to do something on my own. I don’t think I mind using a pattern, but I don’t want to straight-up reproduce a quilt I’ve seen floating around Pinterest, you know? No matter how divine said quilt.

I have “good” things and “everyday” things. Ask me where my Tiffany crystal candlesticks are, and when I used them last. My kid wears the Garanimals yoga pants I pulled off the $1 rack at Walmart, not all the lovely Bailey Boys clothing her Mimi buys her. Even when I cook, I tend to choose crappier, more beat-up looking bowls from the cabinet instead of my “nice” ones. The end result? I haven’t seen my crystal candlesticks in ALMOST A YEAR. Lucy outgrows her best outfits before I can get them put on her.

And I end up with fat quarter bundles of FMF 2012 and Chicopee, untouched, packed in plastic bags in my closet.

Part of this is that I’m afraid that any idea I have for this lovely fabric won’t do it justice. I want to make JUST the right projects with it. I want to stretch it as far as it will go.

Part of it is I’m just a chicken.

Today I woke up resolved to make the first cut in that FMF 2012. That didn’t happen, and it won’t, today. But as the year draws to a close, and as I start to evaluate what I want to have done by the end of it, I’m thinking…

that I need to use my good things. And not just my crappies, my leftover repro prints (even though I think these’ll make a cute little throw, one with a sense of humor).

That goes for the candlesticks and the baby clothes and the red J. Crew pants, too.

goodies

Tags

fabric, modern patchwork, quilts, tabslot

Look at those goodies! Elizabeth Hartman of Oh, Fransson! held a series of giveaways a couple of weeks ago to celebrate the release of her new book Modern Patchwork. I’d had her new book on my Amazon wishlist for months, but was lucky to win a giveaway copy, plus three little fat eighth Kona solid bundles AND (total awesome bonus win) thick high-quality plastic templates for making Hartman’s Fire Drill quilt. The thick templates come from Tabslot, and though I haven’t worked with them yet, they are so thick and durable that I can tell template cutting won’t be the nightmare chore it usually is.

The only questions now are: 1) how soon can I buy a whole bunch of lovely red-and-orange prints to make my own Fire Drill quilt using these templates, and 2) what should I do with these cute solids bundles? There’s not quite enough yardage to make full-scale versions of the quilts from Hartman’s book. And I know they are supposed to be three distinct little bundles, BUT get this:

BWA HA the colors all “go” with my purple-lime-yellow-orange Crate and Barrel kitchen towels that I love love. Maybe it’s time for some ric rack napkins? Or a new sofa quilt (so that we can stop putting so much wear on our current sofa throw, which is the one and only quilt of my Granny’s that I own)? Or, perhaps most tempting, some new throw pillows in big bold solid triangles?

At any rate, between the templates, the book, and the Kona fabric treats, this little bundle from Oh, Fransson! should keep me inspired for some time. Thanks, Elizabeth! (Stay tuned: book review of Modern Patchwork tk 🙂 )

end and beginning

Tags

fabric, quilts

I’m anticipating a BIG finish tonight or tomorrow. A finish to a project that involved cuss-piecing tiny broken dish blocks, hand-appliqueing a bunch of curves (and applique was a completely new skill to me), cutting 300+ tiny fan blades and quarter circles using templates, a poorly-pieced back, borders that didn’t fit, centers that didn’t match up, blah blah. May be the prettiest quilt I’ve ever made, but it’s been a long process.

Because this project is a gift, I can’t post pictures until I’ve given it. But I’m waaay over looking at this quilt, anyway. I’d way rather look ahead to the next thing. I’ve been struggling with the stack of fabric above, trying to figure out if the blues are too bright/mod or maybe it’s the greens that are too muddy/repro? This is the stack, though, and I’ll be sticking to it. This next project is a gift, too, but I certainly will enjoy tracking my process.