New Fabrics

It's a crappy, rainy day today which makes me feel like cleaning my sewing room. Earlier in the week, the weather was fabulous. I started cleaning out my garden and looked forward to keeping on going. Since I can't be outside today, the sewing room is a perfect place to be. I just finished making some cute quilted bags that contained teacher appreciation gifts for my granddaughters' teachers. Unfortunately, I forgot to snap a photo of them before they got delivered to school.

Before cleaning off my sewing table, I took a photo of my purchases from last weekend.

 

Last Friday I went to a sale called FabricPalooza at a local quilt shop. It's a great sale where selected fabrics are $5.99 per yard. That's a really good deal for some high quality fabrics. And the selection is amazing. My friend, Sue and I got there a few minutes before the shop opened and we left there almost 2 hours later. It's a very popular sale so there were lots of people there enjoying the deals. I went there with the intention of buying fabrics for quilt backs. I have 3 finished quilt tops and now I have some pretty fabrics to make backs for them.

Sue and I also attended the It's a Stitch Quilt Guild quilt show at Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School in Jackson, Wisconsin on Sunday. There were so many quilts on display that we spent more than a few hours there. It was a nice, relaxing event so shopping the fabric vendors was easy. I must admit, I spent way more $$ than I had planned. But it's always nice to touch the fabrics and get the opportunity to shop with vendors that come from further away from home.

Plaid Camping Quilt

I've had this nice, patchwork quilt top finished for a very long time. I just never found a backing fabric that I liked for it. Then I received a generous fabric donation from two ladies who lost their mother. From their mother's stash, I found this cute, camping-related fabric and I instantly knew it would go together well with my patchwork quilt top.

The amazing thing was that there was just enough fabric to make the back. I quilted it on my home machine and I was lucky to find some matching fabric to make the binding from the stash too.

Ikea Visit

I live in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, the newest home to an Ikea store. In fact, the new Ikea store is so close to me, I can literally walk there from my house. Although why would I want to? I wouldn't be able to purchase much if I did that. Ha!

On Saturday I had to opportunity to attend a by invitation only shopping event at our new Ikea store even though it doesn't officially open until May 16th. My family and I were pretty excited to go and check it out. We are familiar with the 3-story Schaumburg store and the 2-story Minneapolis store but this one is one level. It was a maze of a store where the aisles zigged and zagged in a way that we weren't sure which direction we were going. Thank goodness for the little guide arrows to tell us which direction to go. After 3 hours in the store, we took home a few good purchases.

I got this 79-cent trash can for my sewing room.

I also purchased 3 of these toy boxes with wheels. I thought they would make perfect fabric storage bins. Since they have wheels, I could easily move them around if they got heavy from too much fabric. They also have a slot in the cover so the fabrics can breathe since it's not a good idea to keep fabrics in sealed containers. I like that I can see what's inside too. And in the end if they don't work out, I can actually use them to store my granddaughters' toys too.

I-Spy Quilt

I put together this quilt from my larger scrap pieces and once I finished the quilt top, I totally forgot about it. I don’t know why I just let it sit there unfinished. The poor thing didn’t deserve to be left behind. So, I dug through my stash and found a nice simple print to use for the backing and quilted it. I liked how the backing looked next to the top so much that I also used the same fabric for the binding.

The pattern for this quilt is called Ashley's Journey and it is from a layer cake friendly book called Piece of Pie. I think I would like to make another quilt using this pattern with fabrics that have a much more cohesive look. Since I used leftovers with no real plan I decided that it looks much more like an I-Spy quilt than anything else. It’s cheery look makes me think it would be a good donation to a charity group.

Tag-A-Long Quilt WIP

I'm working on this pretty quilt and I think I have the layout down. I am going to a big fabric sale this weekend where I hope to find some fabric for the backing.

I love the nice spring colors. And the weather is finally warming up here so it feels right.

This is one of the kits I prepared for my quilt retreat last month. I made 7 quilt kits to take along but I didn't get to this one. I didn't get to half of them - ha!

What's on the design board?

Currently there is nothing on my design board. I know that I've tried to track my quilting progress from month to month by whether or not the same stuff is on the design board on the first day of the month but since I've attended a quilt retreat, there's so many quilt tops completed and not quilted that I really have to concentrate on that. 

Here's my progress over the last week:

I also purchased a pretty bundle recently and look forward to using it in an upcoming project.

It's from Patched Works quilt shop in Elm Grove, Wisconsin. They are having their Fabricpalooza big sale this Friday and I plan to attend in order to buy backing for 3 quilts. Any chance to get a deal on fabrics is a good idea - especially since I need very large pieces.

An Amazing Fabric Donation

My brother-in-law works with a man whose mother-in-law passed away a few years ago. The man’s wife has been distraught since the loss of her mother and has saved the last chore of cleaning out her mother’s sewing room until now. She needed to find a place to take her mother’s fabrics where they would be used in a meaningful way. So my brother-in-law mentioned me to his co-worker which was really very nice of him. After a phone call from the wife where I explained my involvement with some quilting groups, I received this donation of her fabric collection. What incredible generosity!

As I worked my way through the bins I pulled out this little cutie and knew instantly it could be used as a backing for a quilt top I had completed a long time ago. The quilt top sat around for the exact reason that I did not know what to use for backing. As soon as I saw this fabric I knew it was a perfect match.

It was very rewarding to know that I was going to be able to do some good rather quickly with one of the fabrics. I even found a nice tan fabric piece to use for binding. I can’t wait to quilt this one.

The bins contain some quilts that have been started and I am certain that some of the ladies at the senior center would love the challenge of completing those started projects. My friend Sue will be coming over tomorrow to see what she can use for her charity projects and she will help me decide which groups would benefit from these fabrics. Between Quilts for Kids, the Veterans quilts, the Hope House quilts, the church group quilts and the senior center quilts, I am very sure nothing will get left behind.

I cannot thank the generous donor enough for her thoughtfulness and I hope she knows her mother’s legacy will live on through the comfort that these will give to someone.

Serendipity Woods Etsy Shop

I ordered some fabrics and patterns from a new shop. When I say new I mean new to me, not that it hasn’t been around for a while. I really wanted to get a pattern called Churning Fourteen and this is where I found it.

I absolutely had to peruse the shop once I had the pattern in my cart and I ended up with a few fabric bundles. I love the color combinations and the way I could buy many smaller pieces for my scrap quilts. The bundles are so very cute. And just look at the packaging. It’s so pretty I hated to have to open them.

But of course, I did open them. In fact, I couldn’t wait to tear into them. I love the bundles. They are full of so many cute prints I look forward to using them in my Jen Kingwell quilts.