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.

Crossing New Lines In Print

 

It's been awhile since I've had a quilt appear in the pages of an actual magazine, so it was exciting to get my Curated Quilts Red issue in the mail and get to see mine  on one of the mini-quilt gallery pages. They also sent my quilt back to me nicely packaged up with an official CQ sticker, which was a lovely red.

Remember, you can use my code to get a 10% discount: Use my affiliate link code for 10% off on the Curated Quilts website with the referral code: HIGH-FIBER  

Crossing New Lines Crossing State Lines

 

The mini-quilt I made for the Curated Quilts  "Energize"challenge has been sent off to Utah for photography. This is so exciting!  It will be seen in the "Red" issue coming out in April.

I titled the piece: Crossing New Lines. Here's what the back looks like as I was stitching the facing down. I really love the non-framed look of a facing, especially on smaller pieces like this.

Use my affiliate link code for 10% off on the Curated Quilts website with the referral code: HIGH-FIBER

Magazines How Many Are Enough?

I have a whole bookcase filled with magazines. And I'm trying to get rid of a lot of them, selling them on ebay, giving them away, leaving them at the library just to make room for the new ones that keep on arriving every month.

After my time in China, I've found that digital magazine subscriptions are a great option, especially not to have the bulk and the paper to keep around. But you do have to remember that you have them available to read. I haven't managed that quite yet...

How much input is enough though? That's what I keep coming back to as I sort through all these magazines. Do I need all of the new product info, new technique instruction, project descriptions, etc.? I need some of it, because it supplements what I get online and in the books that I own or read. It's more immediately accessible, so yes, I still need some magazines. But not ALL of them.

So, here are the Magazines that I'm really glad I can subscribe to:

Quilting Arts is still interesting and inspiring and I'm glad I've been subscribing all these years. It has changed somewhat over the years, but that's to be expected.

From the same publisher , Cloth, Paper, Scissors is great too, although I no longer subscribe to it.

Surface Design Association Journal - Even though I haven't been doing much dyeing or surface design work lately, I still am a member of SDA, and this magazine is still top-notch and worth the price of membership.

Selvedge - oh goodness it's such a splurge as it's printed in the UK, but it's so very worth it, the writing and the photography are so high-quality and the editorial bent is very different than US magazines which is refreshing. I've just recently economized and gone to receiving the digital version only.

Machine Quilting Unlimited is a newer magazine, I subscribed to it when I was at the Houston IQF a couple years ago. It's got a lot of great information about the subject, great up-close pictures and clear directions. There are of course, quite a few articles about long-arm or computerized quilting which I'm not interested in, but the rest of it is worth it to me to subscribe.

Fiber Art Now - I think they were initially attempting to replace the very-much-missed Fiber Arts Magazine, some of the first few issues approached it, but overall they hadn't quite gotten there, so I stopped subscribing, but I've just renewed. It has really improved and is a very interesting quarterly publication.

I have to say, I'm a little sad about Quilter's Newletter Magazine going out of business, but I haven't subscribed to it in a very long time. I do miss Fiberarts a whole lot more.

Using an AccuQuilt

I recently got the chance to try out my friend, Debbie Wambaugh's AccuQuilt Studio Fabric Cutter before she packed up and moved away (sniff sniff, miss you already Debbie!).
  
I don't normally do a lot of traditional block quilting so I had to come up with a project out of my stash to take over and cut out.  I saw Mark Lipinski's great recent quilt design, Goose Chase in Quilty magazine,

You can buy a digital version of this pattern right here.

 I didn't have a lot of time, so I decided to cut out all the small triangles in lime green, orange instead of pink and black for the colors. And instead of a white background, I chose a variety of  white with black prints.My plan is to cut the bigger ones out myself (since there's a whole lot less of them!)

The AccuQuilt triangle die has the corners cut off of the triangles, which is great, it will make it so much easier to fit those triangles together. I always struggle with that, so any help is appreciated.

Gosh it was so easy to use, once you get the fabric positioned, it's just an easy turn of the handle. I can really see now why people are so excited about these gizmos.  I need to come up with some good reasons that I need one because it was super fun to play with, I can imagine a lot of possibilities.  They have a zillion dies in all kinds of shapes (including strips), so I think I'm going to save up for one.

Sometimes holding the rotary cutter for more than a few minutes gets very hard for me, as my right hand hasn't really recovered from my finger injury a few years back. It's a safety issue as well as an accuracy issue.

Besides the fiddling around with getting the fabric the right size and shape to go into the cutter, the only other big downside is that there is lot of fabric wastage using this cutter.  Which I'm sure with practice you can minimize a whole lot more than my first attempt. Of course, since I love using scraps this isn't really a problem.

So two thumbs up from a novice user with this new tool, putting it on the I-Want-List.

Stack O' Books

Extra large stack of recent reading material.  I just liked all the colors together.  Have I read every page and tried every project or technique in all these books and magazines, um no.  But all of it goes into the data bank for future use, food for thought, etc.  
Should I do some book reviews? I've toyed with the idea and guess that it might be worth a try.

Possible Gifts Being Considered

I was supposedly just looking for the new Quilting Arts Gift magazine, which was there and for sale at my local quilting store. There are some great ideas in this issue and if you're looking for ideas on what to make for people this year for holiday gifts I'd recommend finding yourself a copy.

But...I found myself a new thimble, see that red thing there in the center? Finally thimbles in sizes SML, and the L fits my gigantor digits. It is flexible and thin enough that I can still feel the needle, but thick enough so the needle doesn't go through, and it looks like a Jujube so I think I'm going to like this one. One of the things that makes me dislike hand sewing so much is not having found a thimble that works for me, so I get very sore fingers which are poked full of holes. No wonder I put off hand sewing, eh?

Two fat quarters that having nothing to do with each other or anything else pictured here, I just liked the white/blue woven ikat-ish look of one and the green one reminded me of maps with estimated data.

And a set of cord brakes to fix a pair of drawstring waist pants that I have. The cord stopper has never worked right and it bugs me, so I found these to replace them, hopefully it will fix the problem and I won't have to worry about my pants falling off unexpectedly.

Not exactly a glamorous wild-haired shopping spree, but still more than one magazine.

ISO A certain Fabric for a Certain Friend

Friend Jaye was searching desperately for a Denyse Schmidt fabric "Flea Market Frenzy or some such name". Soooooo not feeling like staying at home yesterday after my chiropractic appointment, I set forth in search of this elusive fabric.

I started out closest to home, and had no luck at the first quilt shop I tried, and I didn't buy a thing, gasp! shock! amazement!

Next up was Cabrillo Sewing in Capitola. They had a lot of nice fabric, but I was good and didn't buy any. But I was taken in by this book, "Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space" and Threads magazines. Hey, I have to plan out my new quilt studio, I need some guidance!

Not done yet, so I headed back over the freeway to Beverly's, hey all cotton fabric on sale. uhoh. A skirt will be made out of the greenapple/floral, maybe with a flounce of the measuring tape. I cracked up the cutting clerk by saying I wasn't going to be using it as a waistband, oh no sireebob! And the kittys? Why did I buy that? I recognized them! That's why. I think this is a recycled print, or something, I swear I had something when I was a kid with these very same cats on it. A case of retro-deja-vu??

Anyways, my clothing aim or thoughts are swinging towards dressing more like a "grown-up, an artist, a creative and a put-together, capable person" instead of a "I'm exhausted, in pain, and I don't care, so don't make me think about what I'm wearing as long as it doesn't hurt person". I'm trying some cotton kirts first, instead of my dyed, worn-out, hand-dyed, very disreputable looking shorts.

And for some reason, I bought this dress pattern, guess I'm planning on attending some party this summer where I will show off my perfectly tanned and buffed out shoulders. Oh yeah, the housewarming party we are hoping to throw for ourselves, that must be it! This will be the first dress I've made with boning in it, but I figure, I won't need to wear any other "support garments", so it is a tradeoff, right? Will I find the fabric in my stash? Maybe....stay tuned....

Last but not least (I knew I should have gone here first!) was Hart's Fabric in Santa Cruz. Of course they had it! An entire rounder of Denyse Schmidt fabric, with a bit of the end goal fabric right there in front of me, I almost missed it. Isn't it cute? Or perhaps perky? Or just plain ol' pretty? Or naturally nice? I like it. Maybe she won't reaaaaalllly need it? maybe. Here it is, with a skull patch I had to have. Don't they look great together? Maybe for a new handbag???

And I again had to feed my clothing pattern addiction. Gawd. I had to have this McCall's pattern. Don't you love the necklines? And that tulip hem? I love that hemline, it makes you feel like you are dancing even when you are just walking.

Then, hanging oh so temptingly over the cutting station was an absolutely beautiful outfit, done up in natural linen, apple green and brown. With an overskirt, and a bolero jacket/shrug kinda thing. It looked so comfy and unique, and so I bought the pattern, it is a Burda, for "Young" (ahem). And no I won't be doing it up in prom type fabrics....I'm thinking of the hemp/silk noil I saw somewhere recently, was it Dharma Trading maybe?? Anyhoo, that would be a good fabric for this, especially if I dye it and do some discharge patterning...

Then I thought I'd try Goodwill in Santa Cruz, to see if they had any good vintage-y fabric goodness. Not really although I did buy these two pieces, one of which you will recognize if you have ever stayed at a major name hotel in Tahiti (didn't notice the printed on label in one corner, oops) for a grand total of $4.50! The weird brown one will become one of the aforementioned cotton skirts, and the black/white one will also, with the addition of some other black/white prints as it is on the smallish side (at least to make a skirt for me!).

Oh, and of course some books. ahem. 3 of which I have already read and wanted to share with my family and reread, and one which had been recommended to me , The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Now, I'm totally pooped but it is 1:30 and by the time I get home, it will be time to go pick up Alex from school, so to kill a bit more time, I swung by my favorite garden store. And wandered around, choosing a new blueberry bush (to replace one of our now dead ones), a pineapple guava (feijoa), lemongrass, pineapple sage, and Her, she will go in the pot where I have my Kaffir Lime, and lemongrass

Pshew, I'm almost as tired out from telling you what I did yesterday, than I was after doing it!