Category Archives: Fabric

Reluctant Destash

So none of my fabric purging methods have been truly successful. I’ve donated it. I’ve given it away. I did a mini destash on Etsy that was a big mess and a huge pain. The fact remains that I still have TOO MUCH with MORE COMING IN and there are awesome new lines coming out EVERY DAY and EVEN MORE awesomeness is coming after QUILT MARKET. I’m feeling inundated with fabric and it’s time for spring cleaning. Instagram seems to be a good place so I’m going to try that instead of Etsy. I’m destashing good stuff – quilt-shop quality, all new and unwashed…Amy Butler, Hope Valley, Nicey Jane, Paula Prass, Tula Pink, Sherbet Pips…to name a few. This sale will be mostly fat quarters and some tasty Moda pre-cuts (shown above).

Here are the rules:

1. Follow me on Instagram (username: vintagemodernquilts) It’s an iPhone app, but if you don’t have one you can follow and comment on the web at the link above.

2. I’ll post photos of destash items and the first person to comment with their PayPal email address is the one who gets it. I’ll invoice for cost of the bundle plus shipping. Invoices must be paid within 24 hours or the fabric goes to the next person in line.

3. The destash will start tomorrow (Friday, April 5) at 2 pm. (US Central time).

4. Each lot will ship in a flat rate envelope so keep that in mind (shipping is $5.75 to anywhere in the US).

5. Once a lot has sold and been paid for, I’ll delete the photo on Instagram.

I am open to international shipping, but the prices are high: flat rate envelopes are $19.95 to Canada and $23.95 everywhere else. I know it might be worth it compared to fabric prices in other parts of the world so if you are willing to pay that, I will ship to you.

See you tomorrow on Instagram! I have a lot of fabric cutting and sorting to do…

Retro Whimsy Bella Solids

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Moda Fabrics has a series of free patterns designed for solids called the 12-Pack. You can see the last released set {here}. I’m working on a pattern from the new set using the lovely stack of Bella Solids above. I like to name my fabric stacks because I’m a nerd like that so this one is called Retro Whimsy. The colors are sort of dreamy and cupcake-like. I’m seeing strawberry cake and chocolate frosting. Mmmm.

The Bella Solids shown (from top to bottom) are:

So that’s what I’m working on today. And now I need a cupcake.

Local Quilt Shop

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Today is visit your local quilt shop (LQS) day. My LQS is a contemporary shop called Quilter’s Connection. They used to carry mostly repros, batiks, and novelty fabrics but have slowly been adding some modern designers to the mix. I hadn’t stopped in for several months so I was very pleasantly surprised today to find so many modern (especially Moda) fabrics and a good selection of well-priced solids.

I picked up just a few things:

A couple of charm packs of Mod Century by Jenn Ski, two mini Bella Solids charm packs, and a yard of Clementine (also Bella Solids). I was thinking of combining the Mod Century + Clementine with some Bungle Jungle by Tim & Beck charms packs I have.

mod-jungle

I love how they look together. This might derail me from my WIPs for the weekend.

Fall Fabric Stack

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I’m in the mood for fall! Where is our sweater weather, Texas? I actually wore shorts today. Shorts! But the continuing heat hasn’t stopped me from thinking about fall. I picked out a pretty stack of Bella Solids to make a quilt:

{All Bella Solids by Moda Fabrics: Berrylicious, Boysenberry, Clementine, Longhorn, Mustard, Saffron, Dark Denim, Eggplant, Grape, Moda U Brown, Almond}

I bought half yards so I have enough for two quilt tops. I think I’ll mix in some prints for one but only solids for the other. I just need to decide on a pattern!

{added to my WIP list}

Fabric Destash

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My fabric stash has become too much for me so it’s time for a big destash. I’m starting today going through my half yard cuts and will continue going through the yardages, FQs, (maybe even the precuts!), and home dec stuff the rest of the week. You can find the listings in my Etsy shop. Lots of Tula Pink (mostly Plume, some Nest), some Jay McCarroll, Laurie Wisbrun, Paula Prass, Amy Butler, Jennifer Paganelli, Urban Chiks. You know, the good stuff.

A Stash Pact

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I am a fabric addict. My sewing room is literally bursting at the seams with fabric and since my son was born, scrapbooking supplies. My friend Lucia and I have shared our fabric/scrapping obsession over the years, and we both came to a conclusion earlier this year. We no longer enjoy adding to the fabric (or scrapping) stash. Both of us easily have enough fabric to quilt for the next 10 years (backs, binding, and everything!) and never buy another yard. I probably wouldn’t even run out of thread or batting for the first 2 or 3 years. My sewing room is so crowded with supplies, quilt tops, projects, and the chaos of a crawling/cruising/active baby boy that I can hardly even move around in it, much less sew productively. And I really want to sew again every day, obsessively, like I used to. I have so many ideas and the energy to create again.

So Lucia and I made a stash pact. Anything we sew or scrap this year should come from our own stash. We each made a short list of “cheats” – things we can buy without feeling guilty. It’s actually been pretty liberating. I’ve already been piecing scrappy blocks, making bibs, and rag quilts for my son. It has given me the freedom to cut into some precious fabrics that have been folded up and saved for “The Right Project.”

Including this beautiful stack:

It’s the original Flower Sugar from Lecien (circa 2009, I think?) plus some black and white prints. I omitted the mostly white Flower Sugar prints because they are too light for the quilt I have in mind. I’m also thinking about adding in some solids. You can never go wrong with solids…though Ben seemed to like the fabric combination as is:

-Lisa

It’s Been One of Those Weeks

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This week my website was hacked (again!) and my car was damaged in a hit and run. The hacking details are tedious and boring, but I am now blogging on a wordpress.com interface (instead of my own hosted site) so that I don’t have to worry about security anymore. Blogging is supposed to be fun, and dealing with a hack is not fun. Google had my URL blacklisted for most of the week, but now everything is up and running and okay. Many links are broken and photos are missing, but I should have all of that fixed in a week or two. If you visited my site in the last week, please run a virus and spyware check on your computer. You can download a free one from Microsoft.

So after dealing with that mess for 5 days, I was awakened at 5:00 am Friday morning by the police knocking on our door. Apparently someone hit our car and abandoned their car a few houses up the block. One of our neighbors called the police when they saw the abandoned car and the police were conscientious enough to check all cars parked on the street for damage. Police often get a bad rap but I have to say that my experience with them (though minimal) has always been positive. They had an accident investigator at our house making a report before they even woke us up. Sadly, my car is not drivable and had to be towed to the dealer for repairs. I am driving a rental for a couple of weeks, and my wonderful husband is dealing with all of the insurance and car repair issues. He literally spent all day Friday on the phone. The people that hit our car did end up coming by the house and giving us their info. They were a couple of college kids who were driving down to the lake near our house and got lost. They were genuinely shaken up by the accident, but thankfully not hurt. Everything will be fine in the end and I am not a superstitious person that believes bad things happen in threes so I am expecting only good things for a while.

I’ve been mired down in purging and organizing my sewing room because in a few short months it will be a sewing + baby room. I’ve gotta make some room for our little guy so a bit of de-stash is in order. Hopefully I can get some things listed in my Etsy shop this week. Meanwhile, I’ve started a new just-for-fun project because I needed some cheering up.

I am taking some of my Moda mini charm packs (charmlets?) and pairing them with a vivid pink to make 9-patch blocks. Then I’m going to quarter them and sew it all back together for a super scrappy quilt. (this one was my inspiration) I’ve got a combination of It’s a Hoot, Hullabaloo, Summer in the City, Central Park, and Buttercup. All of the colors are so happy together and it’s definitely cheering me up.

Baltimore Album Quilt

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I signed up for a year-long Baltimore Album quilt class at a local shop called Happiness is Quilting. This is actually the first quilting class I’ve ever taken, and I’m very excited about it. Our first class was a couple of weeks ago and I’m already feeling very inspired and full of ideas. If you’re not familiar with the style, this is a Baltimore Album Quilt:

It’s all needle-turn applique and each block has a lot of symbolism for the woman who made the quilt. I think traditional Baltimore Album quilts are lovely, but I was really inspired to make one after seeing the wide variety of traditional and contemporary ones on display at Quilt Festival in Houston last November. I really like the idea of personalizing the traditional blocks to tell the history of my family.

Our homework from week one was to choose our background fabric and our focus fabric, and to create a papercut block. I’m still stuck on the fabric choosing part. Background fabric is traditionally white or cream on BAQs, but for a truly modern quilt, a colored background would be gorgeous and unexpected. The focus fabric sets the color palette for the whole quilt so it’s important to choose a fabric that you truly love. Here are the options I’m considering:

Option 1 is a Jo Morton 1850s reproduction print that is very traditional, with that rich poison green color I love so, so much. My background options are Kona Ice Frappe and Sage. I think the Sage is probably the one I’d choose. I can imagine myself always loving this fabric and the colors really are timeless so this option is very tempting.

Option 2 is an Anna Griffin print from her Darcey collection paired with Kona’s Nightfall solid. The colors in that floral print are pretty timeless as well and not that different from the Jo Morton print above. The print is a whole different story, though. It’s not a traditional floral, but it reminds me of a 1950s dress. The dark blue background fabric would make for a pretty dramatic quilt.

Option 3 is one of the wallpaper prints from Amy Butler’s Belle collection paired with Kona Bone. I’m already working on a quilt featuring Belle, and this fabric is impossible to find so that’s a vote against it. The colors in this fabric are just divine, though. Kona Bone looks really good with the rusty orange color in the Belle fabric. The whole palette is just spot on. On the other hand, the fabric is a large scale so most of the pattern would be lost on a 12″ to 14″ block.

It’s going to be hard to choose!

spring sewing

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A few weeks ago my friend Jamie lent me her copy of Amy Butler’s new book, Style Stitches. This book is full of cute bag patterns, and I’ve been dying to make one since I saw them in Amy’s booth at Quilt Market in the fall. Several of the bags resemble her awesome but pricey Sweet Life bags (my favorite was the Hampton bag) but the patterns are simpler with fewer pockets and zippers.

Since one of my goals for this year was to do more non-quilting sewing, I decided to make the Cosmo bag:

Don’t ask me why I didn’t pick fabrics from my ridiculously large fabric stash. I saw these prints from Dwell Studio on fabric.com and they just made me buy them:

The yellow bird print will be the main body fabric and the maze print will be the straps. The prints (especially the yellow) are large scale so I’m crossing my fingers that the bag will be large enough to do them justice. I can’t wait for the mailman to deliver this fabric!

If you are making or want to make any of the projects from this book, there is a sew-along on Flickr.