Selvedge Candy

 Printing out and taping together enormous paper piecing patterns that I'll be using for a new quilt for the MQG challenge. Hope it works out!

This is quite a change from the quilt I was considering making last month. I was thinking about the lovely selvedges and how to use them on the quilt's surface. Glad I reminded myself, and now to think about if that would work with this design...A possible title would then be "Selvedge Candy".

 

Yesterday's Mail

 

Yesterday was a Good Mail day™ because my subscription box from Pink Door Fabrics arrived. It is chock o' block as per usual with all kinds of fun stuff. But I have to say, I really really enjoy the boxes and have a hard time throwing them away. I've been using them for storing current projects, they're roomy enough and easy to move around. Better than buying even more P.O.T.S. (Plastic Organizer Thingies).

There's always a pattern included and this one is super intriguing to me, I've always liked this block but have never tried it (due to the curves and needing to make templates. Well, it includes the acrylic templates, and equipment for doing it EPP style. There also directions for piecing it by machine. We shall see. I quite like the examples on the pattern cover of the fussy cutting these great Tula Pink fabrics.

I'm excited about the Renaissance Ribbons that were included, they're so pretty and match the fabric so well. Another Sewline fabric glue pen is always useful, now I can have one in my to-go box and one in my workroom, some very pointy butterfly scissors, John James Milliners needles, a spool of DecoBob for hand sewing. Oh and a package of seeds, alyssum.

There was also a swatch deck with pictures of each of the prints in the Untamed fabric line. Not sure what those are really for, maybe I can use them in a collage?

Untamed is all about flowers,  there are no animals included in any of these. Except for the check and houndstooth fabrics, it's all gorgeous flower or plant related shapes like seeds..

I really enjoy the variation of patterns used in the backgrounds of the florals.

I'm really into the rainbow houndstooth fabrics. And the patterns on the seeds (or water droplets).

The neons are Very Neon.

A lot of these would play very well with other Tula Pink fabric lines, there are similar motifs that are similar and the colors would work together.

The Tula Pink solids are super pretty. The fabric quality is very good for a solid.

The neon checkerboards are super stinky with the heavy neon print. It's very stiff and plasticky as well. I hope that it washes out and softens somewhat.

Always fun to check out the selvedges.

I like the colors on the selvedge being represented in water droplet (or seed) shapes.

I used my laundry marker to write in the names of the solids, just in case I end up needing more of one color.

The Word of the Day is Ombré

 

I only made two purchases at PIQF, the small bundle of Tilda FQs, and the Fibonacci's Fancy quilt pattern from Material Girlfriends. On the right is a purchase from Stash Fabrics that I got in the mail of the very last two ombrê confetti colors that I needed for the Ombrê Triangles quilt.

Here's the same picture with the Tilda FQs spread out a bit. This is more from the Bloomsville group which I really do love a lot. What do you think, another sort of ombré fabric for the blue/green in the Fibonacci pattern? Might be too much.

And now that I have a rainbow's worth I had to take a group picture of course before they get all cut up!

Appointments to Shopping

I had some time to kill between appointments yesterday so I ended up at Golden State Quilting. It is located dangerously close to my doctor's office. Was that a subconscious reason I chose that particular doctor? Perhaps. Here's a group shot of what I bought on steering wheel. How do you like that kinda wild-eyed cartoon/caricature of Eleanor Burns? 

And here's a more spread-out version of my haul at home in better lighting. Five FQ's,  three of which will end up in the Bohemian Wife quilt as they are Kaffe Fassett Collective prints, a new quilt marking pen from Quilters Select, A smaller wool pressing mat to use at Sew Day and retreats. I bought a Jaybird Quilts pattern, Northern Lights to use with the mini Hex-n-More ruler, mostly based on the fact that they have one made up and displayed and I really want to make one with my own hand-dyes.

Best Besties Box

My surprise Pink Door subscription box arrived with a whole bunch of colorful fun stuff based around Tula Pink's Besties fabric line. Fat quarters of solids and a package of beautiful ribbons too. It's a surprise because I forget that I'm subscribed to receive one, that's on me. Just like I forget the end of movies so I can watch them again, I guess I like being surprised.

These are really pretty together. It's going to be hard to break up the package and wash them.

The solids are really nice too.

Some of the other fun stuff included: a By Annie bag pattern and blue zipper, a sparkly key chain and shiny sticker, some cute best friend labels, a pieced heart quilt pattern and a make your swatches kit.

 

Set Sail Faces

 

Jaybird quilts has adapted their Set Sail pattern to work with the new Tula Pink fabric line Nightshade Déjà Vu. I really like this lattice sort of design. There's a handy dandy fussy cutting video using their SuperSidekick ruler. And a handy dandy pdf on how to adapt the pattern to fussy cutting with fabric requirements as it was written to maximize usage of a fat quarter. I think I'm going to try making a small size of this one, I really like these faces, and I don't always like the faces in Tula Pink fabrics (I know, I know that's sacrilege or whatever).

There are two fabrics in this collection with faces though. They're the same faces but in very different sizes. My plan is to try to use both. I am going to change up some of the colors of the quilt as designed, Definitely not using a pink for the lattice but tbd on that choice. I may also pull in some fussy cuts from other Tula Pink fabrics that fit this theme. 

New Quilting Design Book

 

I’d forgotten that I had preordered Christa Watson’s new book, 99 Machine-Quilting Designs and there it was waiting for me in my PO Box! A nice surprise for sure. And look she sent along a free pattern and a cute pin that says: I ♥️Quilting. The book is great, very clear illustrations and great ideas. Even though I've been free motion quilting for a long time now, it's still good to look at new examples and ways of coming up with quilt designs. I'm going to attempt to implement some of this when I machine quilt my Lone Round Robin quilt. Will I use 99 designs in one quilt? Probably not, but maybe I'll use 10 out of 99, one for each round? 

This pattern, Terrace Tiles is FQ friendly which sounds good to me. It's a simple yet really interesting design.

Safe At Home

 One of my local quilt shops (LQS) is Modern Handmade in Scotts Valley. Right after the Shelter In Place (SIP) was declared they started an 8 week row quilt pattern. The quilt is named Safe At Home and it is still available for download.

I loved the name of the quilt, the idea of a weekly row by row and the initial quilt block design and hot vibrant colors. And then I didn't start it and I didn't start it for various reasons.
But now I have actually gotten to a point where I can begin. Hooray!
So...here is my fabric pull and I'm off to start cutting. I may just stick with batiks, but I've pulled some prints too, we shall see.