Travel Shop

 

The fabric shopping on the way to, and in Portland with friend Jaye, was pretty great. The above picture is  what I found at Sewlarium. First is the new Ruby Star toweling, I'll be making napkins out of this beautiful stuff. I think it'll go well with my pride month table runner. FQs of the PDX airport fabric, a black on grey houndstooth, and odd yellow grid, a pink/caramel ribbon print. A mushroom print that I plan to make a pillowcase with, a really interesting print with odd yellow shapes (I thought it looked like a tile floor), a beautiful (instead of ugly) Frida Kahlo print, and an on-sale pearl bracelets in a dark grey almost black. 

At Pioneer Quilts, I found more of the Ruby Star toweling, because I hadn't bought enough at Sewlarium. An odd grellow star print, a pretty purple halloween print and then the ingredients to make the witch hat "pin keeper" (not a pincushion I guess?). They have a great selection of wools in this shop.

At Mill End, I think I was fabric shopped out/overwhelmed with the vast array of choices, so I only got a couple buckles and a Tombow textile glue that I'd never seen.

In Eugene, we stopped in at Paramount Sew-Vac, a really great store, especially for sewing machine selections as they had all the brands and tons of room displaying them, I found a great remnant of this white and grey print, and then was excited to see Marcia Derse print on a lovely cotton jersey, I got enough to make myself a top.

In Ashland, we checked out Sew Creative and I found that I was really drawn to the Australian Aboriginal prints, they have a huge selection, but I managed to narrow it down and chose three and then found another print that I thought would work well with them.

The last shop we stopped at was Purple Frog Quilt Shop, where I found these 4 FQs, a Peanuts print, blue Grunge, and two lights on a string one dark green and one charcoal. They had a great selection of the American Made solids, so I bought the last of the light grey, a little over a yard. And a new nail file, because my travel one is worn out now and needs replacing.

And finally, at Powell's Books, I found this book, Ahead of the Curve(which includes 5 patterns!) by one of my fave curvy pattern designers, Jenny Rushmore of Cashmerette.

That was plenty of shopping to last me for quite a while, and now I get to add the new fabric purchases into my fabric tracker. At the last update, I was previously at a net increase of 11.8 yards. After adding all this new stuff in,  and subtracting out what I've been sewing since the last update, I'm up to a net of: 18.3 yards. I better get to finishing some big things before year's end to get that number down!

Buying Spree the 2nd

Continuing on with yesterday's buying spree post. Over on the Oregon coast we first stayed in Newport, there only one quilt shop to visit, Quilter's Cove. I thought I'd found two different rainbow ombre digital prints, but instead they are both the same colors, ie the whole rainbow. I wish I'd unfolded them both in the store to check, but I still really like this fabric, and I have 2 yards instead of 1. I also picked up a new marking pencil, the Ultimate Marking Pencil, which looked interesting. I'll post about it when I try it out.

There were several more quilt shops that were on our list for the Oregon Coast, but they happened to be closed on the days that we were driving through. Next time we'll check the schedules I guess? 

Our last shop in Oregon turned out to be Kruusn Quilt Designs and Retreat Center in Coos Bay.  I found the other ombré metallic confetti colors I needed to do the V & A Ombré Triangles pattern in their Ombré Room. How fun to have a whole room full of ombré options. I was even happier that they were all on sale. And then there was this cool black and white celestial that turned out to be glow in the dark. One of the people working there showed us a fabric rope bowl she'd made with this fabric, sewn together with glow in the dark thread. It was super cool!

South of Eureka, California is the small town of Fortuna, we found Springville Quilt Barn. What a great selection of fabric, old and new Tula Pink, Tilda and Ruby Star Society. Fun fun fun. It was hard to pick. I settled on the two Ruby Star Society fabrics, the coppery goldfish on navy and the butterflies on bright yellow background. Then there was the Tilda, I found some Fat Quarters that I liked.

This particular selection of Tilda Chambray was irresistible. And I think it will go well with the Bloomsville group that I bought earlier this year. Now to find a pattern to use them all on.

And would you look at this wonderfulness?! Here's a solid that has the manufacturer and color name stitched right into the selvedge. Why is this the only one I've ever seen???

And finally we went to Stitch, in Ferndale, which was a really terrific store, I found all these goodies. Trying out a new thing, the Odif 505 Fabric Glue Stick, their basting spray works really well, so let's see if the stick version does. A Simply Moderne magazine that had some really interesting quilt ideas in it. A new-to-me Bloc-Loc, the Half-Rectangle ruler.A Hemingway Pouch pattern and a green zipper for one, I've seen these in person and they look great and useful. Some rainbow LOVE labels, sale pencil shaving orange fabric, a tiny black and white print, two calm celestial prints and a couple of fat quarters that I liked.

ICAD Ho!

 It's not too late to join in, Index Card A Day (or ICAD) is happening again this year. It goes for 61 days, from June 1st to July 31st. I'm participating once again this year which will be my 7th year doing this project. 

Here is what my table looks like as I get ready to begin work on the first card of this year's effort. Note the new stack of blank index cards.

All my usual supplies are ready to go. The boxes of pens and pencils all fit in the plastic box.

And even more importantly, I've located my file card holder. One year I couldn't find it for a bit and almost didn't do the project which was very silly of course.

I let the cards dry first before I file them in here, ten cards per section. Blank unused cards go in the back. And if the cards have been watercolored, then I usually flatten them overnight underneath heavy stuff. In my experience, the fairly lightweight cheapie index cards stand up to the water and the working, but they don't dry flat without help.

I'm looking forward to doing this year's project.

More Laps

 

A few more laps were made around the Kawandi at BAMQ Sew Day yesterday. Some more pieces of the silk fabrics I'm choosing from were added as I made my laps. 

As I get closer and closer to the center I have to go back and look at my notes or at Sujata Shah's website for indications on how the centers of these Kawandi pieces are finished off.

But the corners are dismaying me with their excessive fraying. (fraying and dismaying) so I decided to do some experiments with Fray Check. 

This was a new bottle that I hadn't opened, so it required a pin piercing to get it going. I like the fine tip applicator so that it doesn't blob out all over. 

It leaves a mark, but I think it's okay as a color change delineating the change from fabric to frayed edged which I'll be leaving. 

I just hope that it stops the deterioration of the corner pieces. 

A Few New

 I'm going to try hand-stitching with this baker's twine. It's just too cute (maybe it's just the packaging?) not to give it a go. And a new way to glue, so far it's pretty handy, but it's on the drippy side so I'm not sure I prefer it to plain old glue stick.

Some new fabrics, which look like they're up to something all on their own. Always nice to find an Alison Glass print on the clearance rack, it wa quite the deal, I bought the bold end, so it's enough to make a shirt, so who knows.

Glittering Thanks

 For the lovely fabric gift, I made this card with the glitter assortment and glue pen that was also part of the gift.  (Some nice presents huh?)  Nice to have a friend that knows that one can never have too many colors of glitter.









Totally worth the unholy mess.  And very fun to have so many colors to choose from.

 I used all the mixed up color left over to make these swirly dots, they might be my favorite part of this card.

Thankful For Leftovers

Just a little leftover paper flower from the Give Thanks banner. This one was a little wonky and looked too different from the other ones to fit in on the banner, but I couldn't throw it away or afford to send it off to the Island of Misfit Toys. So I gussied it up with some inspiring words, purple paper, glitter (natch) and a red fibery thread. I have it hanging off my thread rack right above my work table.
I'm thinking one could make some very unique and cool tree ornaments in this manner...hmmm, even with a favorite fabric you've stiffened up instead of paper.

Note, this was done before hand surgery, back when I could hold and use scissors.

Former Paste-Eater Confesses

I was getting frustrated with my fairly new glue, the tip was gummed up, I couldn't clear it, and the top was glued completely stuck. I really liked this new brand, I'd never tried it out before and I really liked the smallish container, it fit nicely in my hand and seemed well designed, plus the glue works really well for the kind of collage I like to do.

My internal dialogue went something like this:
"man, I just bought this, I really like this glue and I loved the teeny tiny pen point that it came out of and now it is all ruined and arrgghhh why can't I ever remember to wipe off the top of the glue before I put the cap back on, you would think after more than 40years of gluing stuff I'd have learned that...."
I almost cut off the top to get at the glue inside, but then I noticed something I hadn't before.
This particular glue container is a dual tip, one on either end. D'oh!
Now, mind you the other end is gigantor compared to the one I was using. But hey, at least I get to use the glue (at least until it gums up also.).

This post dedicated to my buddy in 3rd grade, Mrs. Harris' class, at Congress Springs Elementary (RIP now sub-division of mini-mansion-monstrosities), his name was Dallas, and we used to sit in the back and eat a lot of that minty yummy paste. Plus he was one of the few people in my life to date to ever give me a nickname: Jules Verne Jules ( I was quite the reader back then, and going through a Jules Verne phase and tried to get everyone I knew to read the books along with me.).