Fabric Friday

How fun is this?  It is an Aunt Grace print from Marcus fabrics and I now have almost 8 metres of it.  I did not plan on it but I went to check out a funky fabric store on my way home from work.  Overseas Fabric in Abbotsford.  Seriously fun.  Warehouse like with scads of brilliant coloured silks and satins and bling.  Lots of bling.  But they also have some quilting cotton and some really quirky extra wide quilt backing.  And deals.  Lots of deals.  And there may have been some bargaining too.  Just saying. So what started out as, oh, I will take 3 metres, please, became something different.  It went a little bit like, 3 metres?  Let's see how much is left on the bolt?  Oh-7 metres or so?  How about you take it all for $25.  I didn't stand a chance.  So it is mine.  All mine.  Happy Friday!

I am a fabric enabler... fair warning!

1.  I just so happened to be in touch with someone through our quilt guild who wanted to get rid of some Katie Jump Rope... eeek!  So I helped her with that.  Couldn't let her be stuck with these, could I?

2.  At our quilting coffee meet up, I just happened to mention that I had added to my stock of Timeless Treasures black and white striped binding fabric and before anyone could say, "Bob's your uncle."  A group order was being placed for that very thing.

3.  And just in case you need to fix your fabric stash, Fabric Spot has a surprise sale going on from now until midnight Friday, June 6 EST.  20% off the fabric goodness excluding sale items, clearance, pre-cuts and gift cards.  1/2 yard minimums.  Have some fun people!

Candy Bars and Granny Squares

I had a brain wave the other day.  I remembered that I had this...

I bought this last summer for 1/2 price and tucked it away safely.  I had an idea about what to do with it just the other day so got it out and had it sitting out in my sewing mess.  Husband walked by and saw the box which said...

It caught his attention because who doesn't like candy bars?  (Me, except the quilting kind because I don't eat chocolate.  Ya, strange, huh?)  He stopped, thinking that it was really candy bars and took a peak.  He was disappointed to open it and see fabric.  I think he felt supremely ripped off.  But I like what is inside just fine!

Yummy! These little guys are 2.5" by 5" and if I cut them in half, they will make perfect little granny squares pieces!!!!!  Isn't that a great brain wave!?  

And check this out... Husband's Christmas Cactus is blooming again!  It is just so lovely!

Phlox "Bright Eyes" in my garden making me happy

There are some fun things happening out there in blog land and since I am busy with things other than sewing, I must live vicariously through them... at least until the weekend hits!



Have you seen this?  Rachel who has a fabulous blog Stitched in Color, has a lovely idea promising inspiration, contests and tutorials for all sorts of fall projects celebrating colour!  So crank out your knitting needles, crochet hooks and your sewing machine and get busy!

And Adrianne who blogs at Little Bluebell has found new Denyse Schmidt fabrics at Joanns.  The line is called Sugar Creek and I must say I am in love with the green floral.  So pretty!

Have a lovely evening!  And for those on the East Coast, watch out for Hurricane Irene!  Sounds like she is a doozy!

Quilting Road Trip...

Special ruler to assist me in making my Sparkling Cider quilt.

It sounds much more impressive if I say that I dragged Husband on a quilting road trip this morning.  I had a rare day off from school as we are very happy to have a 4 day weekend.  I had to go and pick up a special ruler that I had ordered from a fairly snazzy quilt shop 2 towns over.  It is quite a nice shop way out in the country and they do quite a mail order business.  This is unusual for a Canadian quilt shop.  We have not caught up to the crazy online fabric shopping like our American neighbours.  Of course, if I am picking up a ruler in a quilt shop, I have to look at the fabric, right?  Of course, I do!!!!  I managed to contain myself quite nicely but did pick up some bundles of fabric samples.

I am not sure if you recognize this line but this is Sandy Gervais's new fall line, Grand Finale for Moda, and I saw pictures of this from some Quilt Market posts in blogland and this line is not available until next Fall.  How totally cool is that?  I like the little gingham-y bits.

And a lovely floral from Lecien.  PRETTY!

And this is a mystery but I like it!  Very pink.  Husband was not a fan.

Here is the funny thing though.  Right next to the quilt shop was a farm and on that farm there was a cheese shop.  We had to check it out.  Smits and Co.W Farm Cheese.  Oh my goodness.  It is fabulous cheese.  If you like Gouda, this is the place to go.  All different kinds of really tasty spiced Gouda cheeses.   Really interesting ones like Stinging Nettle, Black Pepper, Cumin.  Totally yummy and very, very reasonable.  Now Husband has a reason to go to the quilt shop.  It is all about the cheese!

I also convinced him to stop for me at a thrift shop.  Why not, right? But I will save that for tomorrow!  Have a lovely weekend!!!!

Fabric heaven!

Today was day 2 of the sewing and craft show and I waffled all evening about should I or shouldn't I go back to the show for the by the pound fabric.  Finally the decision was made that we would make that stop part of the Saturday errands.  First thing though.  If I was going to do this, I needed to be there for 9 am.  OMG!  The doors were open before 9 and we were allowed in to lurk.  OMG!  There was no one else at my fabulous local quilt shop booth and I could see the pile of by the pound samples.  I spied a stack of Sunkissed, Fruitcake by Basic Grey, some Love U, blah blah blah.  The announcement was made that the show was open and I started to pile up stacks of fabric loveliness.  I really had no competition.  The other shoppers who arrived were seemingly looking for things that I was not.  It was all very polite with people chatting as they pawed through mounds of fabric.  Everyone was loathe to mess it up but eventually we got over ourselves.  And here are the pictures of the spoils!

The whole mess of it

Fruitcake in all the colour ways and when is it too early to talk about Christmas fabric?

How much fun is this???

Sunkissed in all the colour ways too!

Love this line!!!

Yep, some Japanese cottons too!

This is a huge pile of romantic floral print in all colour ways as well!

So complete fabric love and I have to hand it to my fabulous local quilt shop for having the great idea of selling the samples like this, a couple of times a year and by the pound!  It makes the whole adventure like a quest!!!!!  And the icing on the cake was that we were so early that the parking lot attendants had not arrived so the parking was FREE!!!!  Totally awesome!

Sewing and craft show!

First of all, happy April.  I have been looking forward to today for over a month because today was day 1 of a big sewing and craft show one town over.  So I scooted out from school right away and headed on over.  What I was really looking forward to was my fabulous local quilt shop was going to do their by the pound sale.  This is where they sell off their samples by the pound.  By the time I got there though, the by the pound stuff had been pretty picked over.  I found a few things including some of Deb Strain's Fresh Flowers line and I did pick up a charm pack of the same.  Very bright and cheerful.  Lots of vendors had fat quarters for cheap so I did buy fat quarters!

And finally one vendor had all their yardage on half price but you had to buy a metre minimum.  I found more of those cute blue owls and then some other assorted pretties including a Kaffe Fasset floral print on blue and a daintier floral on blue.  Totally fun.  There were also lots of classes you could sign up to take but I was too pooped after a day at work with a veritable mountain of paperwork on my desk.

My fabulous local quilt shop lady told me they would refresh the by the pound stuff for first thing in the morning tomorrow but it is a long drive and parking is $5.  And all I would want to do at that point is look at the by the pound sale stuff so I think I will wait until she does it again in August at her actual shop.  Boo hoo!

Projects on the go for tomorrow.  Errands a plenty and then I have got to finish Mr. Dog's (a.k.a. Webster's) quilt/pillow bed thing.  I did buy fabric to finish that up at the sewing show.  The fabric was CHEAP! and matched his fur.  And that is a good thing.  Did I mention how much I love our new floors?  Happy Friday!

Back at home and tired!

Well, crawled in the door last night in the wee hours.  San Francisco was awesome and it was a truly amazing conference.  And I did find time to visit one fabric store.  Just one.  But it was the famous Britex Fabrics right near Union Square.  It was sooooo exciting!  4 floors of fabric and not just any fabric.  Nope. I had my hands on Liberty of London cottons.  But that was it.  I just touched them and mentally drooled.  $49 a yard.  Yoiks.  Lovely to look at and to covet but wow!  That's a lot of $$$$.  I did find some lovely Kona cottons.

from the bottom that is Ash, Bahama Blue, Spring (I think...) and Honeydew Melon

 And a lovely remnant of gorgeous blue cotton that is almost silky in it's softness.  And they have such a way of wrapping their remnants.

 Incredible service and oh... I also found some perle cottons.  Just so darn pretty.

Even the bag is lovely.

And they gave me some postcards just because...

But I am so glad to be home!!

It came!!!!!

Oh my goodness!  Husband left me a message today that there was a package in the mail and that I might want to know that.  Oh my goodness!  I now have faith in the system.  Online fabric buying from the United States and shipped to Canada does work.  It took just a bit over 10 days.  Not bad.  Not great if you are wishing for instant fabric-gratification.  And no extra duty, charges, taxes blah blah blah.  I ordered from the Quilted Castle and I am happy to say that I would order from there again.  Good story.  Happy, happy, joy, joy.

So what did I buy?  1 yard of Meadowsweet Grand Foliage in Celery by Sandi Henderson for Michael Miller .  On sale!  And then 1 yard of Daisy Path and Meadow Dot in Robin's Egg.  Same designer.  And then 2 colourways of Trees, It's a Hoot by Momo for Moda.  Too cool for school!  And not to be forgotten Bella solid, Sunshine by Moda Basics.  And sunshine it is on a rainy day!  And this is just stash building.  Pure fabric happiness.  

Fabric and a visitor

First of all the visitor.  Hanging out at the pond for much of the day was this lovely fellow.

But about fabric.  We stopped for a bit at the fabulous local quilt shop this morning.  We had a list of errands including mailing a care package to nursey student daughter.  Husband made her cookies.  BIG cookies.  He claims the recipe was broken as the recipe said it would make some vast quantity and it made only a few dozen BIG cookies.  Anyway, fabric.  I picked up a few things on sale including the end of the bolt of Happy Butterfly from the Meadowsweet line.  Very cheerful.  And a wicked steal of a deal because it was the end of the bolt.  I had to get some more of the dots from Momo's It's a Hoot because I love, love, love it.  And a few other things.  Buy one get one fat quarters too.  Check out the pile.  Aren't those little blue owls cute?

And then I have a thrift store find from a few weeks ago.  Almost a metre of Yuwa-Ring My Bell for $1.25.  Kind of odd colours and who knows what to do with it but it was almost as if they paid me to take it!?  Any ideas anyone?

Fabric buying stage fright overcome!

I spend a great deal of time checking out all the wonderful online fabric stores in the US.  I check and recheck and debate.  Until just now, I have been completely too chicken to purchase fabric from the States. Not anymore.  I did it.  Phew.  Stage fright overcome.  Can't wait to get my hands on it.  Will have to let you know how it all turns out.

And just in case you did not know, Green Fairy Quilts have a 25% off sale.  Just in case you didn't know...

Thrift Store Score!

Okay, I have this favourite thrift store.  While husband and I were out and about this weekend, of course, we had to stop in and check it out.  By we, I mean me.  Husband just about gave me a heart attack before Christmas by coming in to said thrift store to help me carry my purchases.  Seriously!  I just about fell over.  I am sure I was stuttering in shock.  Anyway, I convinced husband to stop at the thrift store.  2 things worked in my favour.  I had 2 bags of stuff to give them.  Perfect!  Husband loves to get rid of stuff.  Second thing in my favour, Tim Hortons is right around the corner.  A new one.  Perfect for a Saturday morning coffee fix!  So in I went, straight for the fabric.  They have a great selection on a regular basis.  I have no idea why.  I don't ask.  I just paw through it happily and what did I find???  OMG... check it out and look at the price.  So there.  Thrift store score.  Underwater sisters, Helen Ross, Free Spirit, Menocino. Beautiful silky cotton.  More than 1.5 metres and a total cost of $3.

First blog entry!

Here it is the first ever... Having been  extremely interested in reading the great quilting blogs that I found last summer, I finally decided enough is enough, I have to do it too.  I was bitten by the quilting bug last March when visiting a quilt shop with my Mum.  It just took me a little while to get it altogether.  I started sewing again after a long, long time.  I cranked out some scrub tops for my nursey student daughter.  Then tackled the Amy Butler messenger bag.  Oh my goodness!  That was more like fabrication than sewing but she loves it so it's all good.  And then after a timid visit to an absolutely lovely quilt shop in the town next door, I bought a pattern.  Dug out my fabric stash from a million years ago and got busy.  Hmmm.  Then my sewing machine, a trusty old Kenmore, decided it was going to squeak.  It needed a trip for an overhaul.  I went into sewing machine withdrawal for 2 weeks.  Argh!  But then I got to thinking that I really should try free motion quilting if I was going to get serious.  I knew that there was a learning curve and the first thing I was going to need was the right kind of a foot.  Back to the sewing machine shop.  I tried it out and I was right.  Much practice required.  It looked terrible!  I checked out some blogs.  Checked out Oh! Fransson's (http://www.ohfransson.com) free motion tutorial in quilt making basics.  Very helpful.  I decided that I needed to practice but not practice on something that was going to cost a lot of money.  Frugal?  Cheap?  Elizabeth Hartman's clothesline quilt pattern fit the bill.  Old sheets.  Thrift store.  And some of my stash.  First quilt completed.  The happy quilt.

Check out my feet!  Cathy