Stash Evolution

After returning from vacation at the beginning of last month, I worked to organize my sewing space (as I write this, it’s a mess again though). First up? Fabric, fabric, fabric.

The fabric in my house is multiplying. From what I understand, this is a regular phenomenon.

You can follow the evolution of my stash below.
Note: my sewing space has no windows, various light sources and khaki walls, so getting true-to-life colors in photos is nearly impossible in this room (despite trying to color correct in Photoshop).

A little pile of all my fabric, early 2009 (pre-quilting):

Stash building has begun, August 2009:

An established hobby, June 2010:

July 2011 (showing a bit of fabric boom in the last year):

You can see that my fabric now takes over the entire bookshelf.

Top shelf: 1 – 2 yard cuts on mini bolts*, narrow stacks with Heather Ross prints, Anna Maria Horner prints and some miscellaneous fabric groupings.

Second shelf: wider stack is small cuts of solids and near-solids; narrow stacks are F8ths/FQs/half yards sorted by color and motifs (general, novelty and text/word prints)

Third shelf: fabric collections (FQ – yardage cuts), including FreshCut, Mendocino, Far Far Away I/II/III, almost all of my Denyse Schmidt prints (KJR, P&F, HV, GFH).

Fourth shelf: fabric collections (FQs – yardage cuts), including Farmdale, Tula Pink prints (Neptune, Parisville, Prince Charming, Nest, Flutterby, Full Moon Forest), Lizzy House prints (RLD, Peeps), 1974, Figgy Pudding.

Fifth shelf: the fabric on the mini bolts is slated to be binding for future quilts; the folded fabric is mostly large cuts (3+ yards), some of which have been earmarked for backings.

Bottom shelf: don’t let the boxes fool you. There is fabric in them, too: decorator weight, flannel, and miscellaneous.

Next to my bookcase is a drawer unit (ALEX from IKEA) that holds my precuts, my small collection of FMF and Munki, a couple WIPs, and some other small piles of fabric for future projects.

Atop of the ALEX unit is a metal bin with batting.

And then there are the scraps; the bigger scraps are sorted by colors (red/pink, orange/yellow, green/blue, purple/brown, black/white, multi) in newly-purchased clear plastic drawers under the desk that I use for my pressing table.

In the desk drawers, my smaller scraps are somewhat organized into strips, charms, layer cake extras, small squares and ‘needs to be sorted.’

Prior to getting all of the fabric neatly folded and organized, I had fabric piled on every horizontal surface in my sewing room (I didn’t think to take a picture of my fabric mountains, but I should have!). I spent a weekend sorting, folding, organizing and putting it away. If you have an ever-expanding fabric stash, I suggest you do this too since it can be really eye-opening to see what you have all spread out.

Since it is now more than obvious that I have enough fabric to last me years, I really need to curb the amount of fabric coming into my house.

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*When organizing my fabric this time, I tried a new-to-me method for my larger-ish cuts: mini-bolts.

I’ve seen examples of quilters using comic book boards as mini-bolts, but I wanted bigger mini-bolts so they would fill the depth of my shelves and be tall enough to hold the fabric for the way I wanted to fold it. As luck would have it, there are bigger mini-bolts in the form of magazine backing boards and even bigger “Life” magazine backing boards. The “Life” magazine backing boards best fit my specs but would need to be trimmed on one end for my needs.

Before I placed an order for the magazine boards, I decided to ask my friend Lisa what she used when she organized some of her stash with mini-bolts not long ago. It turns out she used “Life” boards and she bought too many so she had extra to spare. I bought a pack from Lisa, trimmed them to 11½” tall to fit my fabric/shelves and got busy wrapping my larger-ish cuts of fabric (1 to 2 yards). The “Life” boards are the perfect width (10¾”) for my shelves so there is not any dead space in front of the fabric on the shelf. And I pin the fabric to keep it wrapped around the mini-bolts. A downside to having wider mini-bolts is that cuts of fabric less than one yard don’t wrap around the board well. I am ok with this “issue” since I fold and stack my smaller cuts anyway. Thanks, Lisa!

Ready to Bee Done

I was in two bees in the last year and a half. I just finished and returned the last of my blocks.

Virtual quilting bees are a nice way to connect with like-minded people and try new techniques. After this experience in bees, I have determined that I much prefer to work on my own projects, in my own time, and at my own pace. I hope that doesn’t come off sounding snooty because that is not how I intend it. Let me explain…

I am a stay-at-home-mom to three girls (ages 5, 3 and 1). My husband travels for work at least 50 percent of the time. Our extended family is a plane ride away. At this point in time, it is about prioritizing. My sewing time is precious to me and I want to spend it working on the many projects that I already have sketched out or digitally drafted. So many ideas, so little time!

My experience in VQBs went by without a lot of drama. There were a couple of drop outs, but aside from that, I think it went fairly smoothly. However… I am disappointed that I never received my block back from one bee member, despite requesting it back multiple times. I flickr mailed them (no response), left a comment on their blog (no response) and emailed them (no response). Why in the world can’t they just send my fabric back? I’ll make the block myself, I don’t care at this point. This person works hard to promote their blog/brand/sponsors but can’t fulfill a commitment they made or even reply to my communication attempts. I’m now regretting the two blocks I made for them. Oh well.

I don’t think I’ve ever blogged about any bee blocks I made. I do want to show just one, if you don’t mind.

This is the last bee block I made.

Erin sent out black & white FQs, asked us to incorporate an accent color from our stash (my choice: pink), and gave us “triangles” as a theme. I have been wanting to make “A Circle of Geese” block and figured this was a great time to do so (I used the free pattern from Piece by Number, but scaled it down to fit the block specs of 10″ finished). This block is a bit time consuming, but oh so fun to watch come together.

I should be able to show you a finished bee quilt soon. I am more than half way done quilting it and just need to sit down again to finish it up.

[Ode] Progress

I now have a little bit of every Flea Market Fancy print after my begging plea for help in a previous post. I owe a huge THANK YOU to Angie, Penny, Steph, Jenny, Alecia, Dorrie, Amy, Erin, Amy, Krista, and Jenn for donating to or swapping with me. Often times, it takes a village to make a quilt, and this quilt is no exception.

In other news, Denyse Schmidt released sneak peeks of her next JoAnn collection, Sugar Creek, which will be available in late August.

Now that I have all FMF in hand and know what Sugar Creek looks like, I have an idea of how all of the fabrics will work together in my Ode quilt. I have been tracing and cutting out more pieces to add to my design wall (placement of colors no where close to final).

For the Sugar Creek prints, I made little paper swatches of the fabrics by printing out the pictures of the collection and cutting them up. I’ve pinned the paper swatches to my design wall where I think they will work. Obsessed much??

Originally I thought I would use a white or an ivory background with the circles, but that choice seems too safe. So, now I am leaning more toward a darker neutral like Moda Bella Solids in Stone (daring, right?!). You can see what bright KJR colors look like on Stone in this image and here’s another quilt with Stone (both not mine). Stone is a good way to go, right?

Finish It Up! Check-in

It is time for me to check-in with my Finish It Up! progress, especially since it is week four! This summer is flying by and I only have one finish so far. :/

[I am focusing my efforts on my IN PROGRESS/DUE projects and am trying to skip the LONG TERM and ON HOLD/IN LIMBO projects (which I described here).]

WIP LIST

• Arcadian Meadow (throw quilt): finished! (I linked this finish to Meg’s post for FIU!)
• County Picnic (picnic quilt): no progress; hope to finish before August
• Knowledge, Faith, Nurture (potholders): no progress; will tackle during road trip in August
• Trudy Tres (throw quilt): no progress; taking to a quilt retreat at the end of the month
• Hopscotch Patchwork (picnic/throw quilt): no progress; taking to retreat
• Bee Blocks (x3): no progress; will finish before retreat

Considering that I finished one WIP, my WIP count should have gone down to 10. Instead, it rose to 12 because I started two more (similar) projects. I could have easily started two more, but I restrained myself. And then there’s the baby quilt I have yet to start but need to so I can give it as a gift.

I am in the midst of organizing my fabric because it was all over the place in my sewing room. I am nearly done with getting it back in order, so now I should be able to focus on my WIPs (and hopefully not start any more projects!).

[Arcadian Meadow] Finished

I am glad to finally call this quilt finished. When you consider that I started cutting the fabric for it a year ago and it is a gift for my brother (and now sister-in-law) who got married in January, it’s about time!

We are in Florida visiting family so I was able to hand deliver the quilt to my brother and sister-in-law as well as take pictures of it in my folks’ backyard garden.

For this quilt, I used the pattern that Moda released with Tula Pink’s Nest collection. The pattern calls for pre-cuts (layer cake + jelly roll) and I had only a layer cake + FQs. I had to modify the pattern slightly to make it work with FQs instead of a jelly roll. And I upped the total number of blocks from 16 to 24.

Combing Arcadia and Modern Meadow prints was a happy accident after the two collections were placed next to each other on my sewing table last summer. I discovered that most of the Sunny Day palette of Modern Meadow works with Arcadia. I did not include the Modern Meadow prints with a lot of aqua (“pond”) because it is brighter than the Arcadia aqua. And the other colors – orange, ochre/yellow, taupe/brown, white/ivory – aren’t an exact match but are close enough that I felt comfortable using them together.

I had to piece large cuts of the Arcadia prints for the backing. When I showed my husband what yardage of Arcadia is going for on etsy, he thought I was nuts to use it for the backing. But I bought the fabric awhile ago with the intention of using it as a backing, so that’s what it became.

I once again pieced my label into the back and am still happy with the results.

And I used the Modern Meadow Herringbone print in timber for the binding.

Before sitting down to free motion quilt, the first thing I did was modify my darning/free motion foot. Doing so makes such a huge difference in my ability to FMQ. I have better visibility, more control and I am not distracted by a jumping foot. Why didn’t I do it sooner?!

For the quilting, I am continuing to push myself, albeit slowly, to expand beyond stippling. I am most comfortable with all-over stitch designs; am not comfortable travel stitching yet; and for this quilt I wanted the stitching to resemble plants/nature in some way to mimic the motifs in the fabric. Given all of that, I felt a little limited by what I could tackle.

I searched through Leah Day‘s archive of free motion quilting stitches and thought I might attempt the “Wandering Clover” design. After trying it out on a test quilt sandwich, I simplified the design even more into a two-leaf clover, instead of three.

The quilting design is a little more dense than I intended. I went through nearly 8 bobbins of a 50wt Aurifill thread (which is a thinner thread)! The thinner thread practically disappears in the quilt but leaves a nice texture. I do like the result and am excited to tackle a harder FMQ design next.

I used Soy Soft by Luna (Moda) batting for the second time and am much happier with the results this go-around. I did not experience any bearding and pilling like I did the first time (the bearding and pilling might have been a result of me washing, and not drying, the quilt several times trying to get rid of chalk lines. Maybe I agitated it too much??). Soy Soft is a 50/50 organic soy cotton blend, is naturally anti-bacterial, has a really nice drape and is also lighter than the cotton batt I normally use (Warm & Natural). I would definitely use it again.

And now, some other notes and lessons learned from this quilt…

• I broke more needles than I would care to admit while quilting (AKA watch out for safety pins!).
• I learned to always check my tension before sewing (apparently my girls like to play with the tension dial which meant I had to unpick stitches twice).
• Layer cakes are not accurately cut by the manufacturer.
• I prefer designing and drafting my own patterns as opposed to following someone else’s pattern.
• Better ergonomics + large even surface area around my sewing machine + modified darning foot = a much more successful and pleasant FMQing experience

Oh, and you would think that my WIP count would have gone down by finishing this quilt, right? It turns out it didn’t. I somehow managed to start yet another project as I was trying to complete this one, so my WIP count remains at 11.

Three-quel Thoughts (FFA3)

I just got my fat quarter bundle of Far Far Away III prints by Heather Ross today and wanted to share my thoughts about it, good and bad.

I anticipate making a fairytale quilt at some point using my Far Far Away prints. I have one colorway from FFA1, FQs of the entire FFA2 collection and now a little bit of each FFA3 print. I wonder how many more FFA collections there will be? At what point do I just start the quilt and not worry about missing out on any future fairytale themes? From the way I’m feeling about this latest collection, this might be the last FFA collection for me (but don’t quote me on that!).

I am disappointed with this collection and am starting to lose a little bit of love for Heather Ross (losing the love not solely due to this, but in conjunction with issues related to her Spoonflower prints, her studio sale and full disclosure).

I am not sure why the prints in this collection were grouped together and called Far Far Away III. One of the prints show little girls playing with toy horses (the print is called “Play Horses” on Spoonflower). How does that relate to fairytales? I do like the Girls & Horses print and think it will mingle well with her West Hill line. I find the placement of the girls to be odd because there is a lot of negative space around them. I don’t know why the design isn’t tighter. The accompanying print to the Girls & Horses is the Guitar print. The guitars could easily be mixed with the fairytale prints because the Owl and Pussy Cat design from FFA2 has a guitar in it. The Guitars and Girls & Horses prints are on a heavier weight cotton-linen blend (canvas-y); similar, if not the same, as the FFA2 line.

The other prints – Snow White, Wildflowers and Laundry on the Clothesline – are on a lighter weight cotton-linen blend and it is really, really soft. It almost has the feel of a quilting weight cotton. It is so much better than the heavier canvas and the double gauze from FFA1.

My biggest disappointment with this collection lies with the Snow White print. Sadly, the placement of the design elements and repeat were not very well thought out. Heather mentioned on her blog that she struggled with the repeat for this design and I don’t think she won the battle. The majority of the print is trees. There are three scenes in the print: the dwarfs cutting down a tree, the dwarfs’ tree trunk house and Snow White waking up.

I ordered a FQ bundle of this collection and did not get a single full Snow White in the bunch. In fact, one of my FQs had no full scene on it; trees only.

In no way do I fault the online fabric shop that I bought this from. Fabric shops can’t afford to fussy cut fat quarter cuts and half yard cuts. From looking at what I have of the print, I think you would only get ONE full Snow White per yard of this print. Partial Snow Whites are placed along the selvages. And there is also one right in the middle of the print, so if you order a FQ, she gets cut in half. If you order a half yard and are lucky enough to get a Snow White, then you will miss out on the other two scenes. You might get parts of the others, but not full scenes.

If you are looking to fussy cut Snow White in a quilt, that’s one expensive Snow White when you consider that these Japanese prints are double the price of “normal” quilting weight cotton fabric.

The repeat of that design just does not make sense to me. I guess quilters and those who want small cuts of fabric are not a high priority to Heather, which is sad to me since I am a quilter.

I miss the completeness of a collection, like she had with Mendocino. I know she’s working overseas with Kokka because of some sort of non-compete she signed with Munki Munki. I hope that non-compete ends soon and she works with FreeSpirit to put out a well rounded collection on quilting-weight cotton in the future.