Into the Rainbow

 
Here's how the first block from the first Color Collective rainbow selection ended up going together. It was  honestly quite hard to pick the two colors to begin with.

I was supposed to "plan ahead" to cut the pieces out of the fabrics and have enough to go around. I know, weird concept right? But I only got this far on the coloring sheet. I guess that the blank spots will be 🤷🤷🤷who-knows-winging-it.

This was the first time I've tried the glue stick, flip and sew version of paper piecing. At first I was a little irked at having to pre-fold all the lines. But then the process went really really quickly and I'm so totally onboard with this technique. Sewing right next to the folded line worked well for me and I didn't get the pieces flipped around the wrong way even once, which for me was kind of amazing.

The first of four sections, each one is slightly different from the other three.

The instructions were to write on the interior corners with a sharpie the number of the section. This was to be able to keep track of which section was which once the papers were unglued. Wow, was that ever nice just to pull it off in one re-usable piece. I like this new-to-me version of paper piecing. But, oh my goodness, writing on quilting cotton with a sharpie was unbelievably hard. It gets cut off of course, but still, approaching the sewn together section with a Sharpie was a breath-holding moment.

And there's how it looks, pretty cool, huh? I am Very Happy with the color choices that I made. It's going to look good with more blocks.

As per usual, my least favorite part of paper-piecing, the sort of wasteful feeling with all the scraps.

Rise and Shine

 

After much post-evacuation postal delay, I received my very first Sew Sampler subscription box from Fat Quarter Shop. It arrived the day after we evacuated, and I'm not sure what happened to it after that to it, and I didn't honestly much care as I worried about whether the Post Office and our town and our house were maybe burning down. But the Post Office and the town and our house is okay (for now) and the package appeared in our PO box early last week, a little dented but all in one piece.

Inside of the cute box, there were two 5" precut charm packs, with very cute fabric designs. Not exactly my style but that's how these boxes tend to go, right? Sometimes they're a real hit, sometimes just okay on the fabrics. This is somewhere in the middle, I love the colors quite a lot.

The notions though are pretty great, a small rotating cutting mat, which is going to be great for trimming up smaller blocks as I work on them. Some quilting between needles, which I still and always hoard for *someday*, as well as a pack of crazy quilt paper-piecing papers. They've also included a pattern called Crazy Daisy which utilizes those crazy quilt block paper as the center of a star. There's also a block of the month design as well. 

So there's lots of stuff, and now that I'm likely shifting into making quilts for the people in my town who have lost everything to the fire, I can work on getting these done.

And now I'll be getting the September box, in a more on-schedule sort of timing I'd imagine

Box of Joy

What a nice surprise on Mother's Day when we picked up our mail, my first Modern Quilter's Box had arrived. My local quilt store (LQS) Modern Handmade offers a monthly subscription box, and I hadn't signed up before figuring I have Enough Fabric for several lifetimes. But then the SIP happened and I really wanted to support this awesome little shop. Isn't it a lovely design? I'm going to use it for storing a project in process inside of it instead of recycling it right away.

 A look at all the fun goodies inside!

• A bunch of FQ's (9?I think? They're in the wash right now so I can't count them!) from the Art Gallery Fabrics new collection:  Marrakesh Fusion. So very very BoHo so I reallly love all these patterns and colors all together.
• A pattern by MasterpieceQuilting Nancy Scott - Barn Raised Birds - I've never done a Birds In The Air quilt, maybe it's time now that I have a pattern
• A rainbow Choose Joy sticker which is utterly perfect for this moment in time
• A That Purple Thang - always good to have a backup, this is a very useful tool that I will add to my to-go bag.
• A type of Stash tea I've never tried, Meyer Lemon, it was very good, but my advice is to not add milk as it is quite lemony, unless you like curdled milk in your tea of course.
• A Stroopwafel that was so nice when heated up on top of the cup of lemon tea, all gooey and caramelly.

I'm so glad that I signed up for this box. I know it was hard to get it out the door and mailed this month, so I very much appreciate Modern Handmade for getting it done.

Goodbye Culcita

 I've enjoyed getting a Culcita box over the last couple years. There was always such a great selection of fabrics, ones that I wouldn't have normally purchased, but that all worked together.

And they were always packaged up so nicely, which doesn't really matter, but still made it a real treat to receive in the mail.  But they're stopping the subscription service and concentrating on the SewTites (which are very cool by the way!)

So now I'm on the lookout for another subscription box or something like it. Any recommendations?

The Best Mail is Fabric Mail

 Colors right up my alley this month from Darn Good Yarn. Background is one of the Fabmo upholstery fabrics I recently snagged.

And wow, the Culcita box was gorgeous this time around. They're all from a really well-done collection, Road Trip by Alison Glass.

First Box

 Here's the first Culcita box that I received. It's so fun to get a nice surprise like this in my mailbox. Inside there's a lollipop, a quilt pattern and a very nice "handmade by" label.

And a great sturdy orange box that I'm keeping and using for something. What a great selection of fabrics inside, some I would have chosen on my own, and some I wouldn't have, so a good balance. All very very usable.