Friday, August 27, 2010

OOP(s) I did it again

I think I did it again
I made you believe we're more than just friends
Oh baby
It might seem like a crush
But it doesn't mean that I'm serious
'Cause to lose all my senses
That is just so typically me
Oh baby, baby


I  never thought I would have anything in common with Britney Spears.

And we really do NOT have anything in common. She is talking about some silly crush and I'm talking about something really important. Out-Of-Print fabric.

If you're a quilter, you completely understand. Flea Market Fancy lover? Admit it. You've done ebay and etsy searches looking for some scraps you can afford. Why, just the other day I had a bid in for 10" squares of almost the entire line. I was willing to bid up to...well, the actual amount I was willing to bid is such a nonessential detail. Let's just say that I lost the bid in the very last minute so I will still have some extra pennies to spend rather than being in hock for the whole month of September.

Then my friend, Jennifer, started to destash. Mark is still pressing for a full-disclosure post on the amount of fabric I own and clearly I do not need ("need" being an entirely relative term...) more fabric. But Jennifer, hey, you are willing to get rid of Amy Butler's pink coriander? Seriously?? I have been needing that fabric!


Her post was only 55 seconds old so I was sure the fabric would soon be on its way to my house. I hit the "add to cart" button. Ack! It wouldn't load into my cart. Tried it again. Still wouldn't load. I started to panic. My hands got sweaty.

So I convoed her on etsy, left a comment on her blog post and sent off an email to her, all in the space of a minute.

I'm sure I didn't come across as desperate at all...

Then I waited. The next time I checked, I got that little message that says, "Uh oh, the item you are searching for has already been sold." Are you kidding?

Apparently Jennifer sensed my desperation willingness to help with her destash project, and had taken it out of her shop and put it on hold for me.

I'm pretty sure this won't be the last time I succumb to the thrill of the chase for out-of-print fabric. But if I show up in fabric court some day, having been picked up for recklessly speeding through web sites trying to locate out-of-print fabric, with blatant disregard for my Paypal account, I'm going to plead the fifth and just say, "Your Honor, OOP(s), I did it again."

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Color Therapy Thursday--Orange

I clearly have today mixed up with Orange Wednesday. Also keep in mind that while I love the color orange, I have absolutely no orange anywhere in my wardrobe.

But first I saw this:


And then I did this:

Maybe it was the orange glitter that had me too dazzled to think clearly...

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Orange Wednesday--Fairytale Pumpkin edition

In my previous post I laid out my week in color.Thanks for all the very interesting comments, by the way. Believe it or not, a quilt design based on those colors is kind of percolating. I'm not sure what will come of it. My Color Rock Star coach, Brandi, started the whole idea. So we'll see what happens. (Is there anyone else out there who wants to take that class just because of the name? Side note to Brandi: I think you should make a button for people who take the class that says, I'm a Color Rock Star!)

Anyhoo, according to the colors in my head, today is orange. Now here is an interesting dilemma. I love orange. Not such a big fan of Wednesday. It probably has something to do with the fact that this is the day where I have the greatest volume of medical transcription and it seems like I am sitting at this computer for an interminable amount of time. I realize, of course, that my day would be considerably shorter if I didn't have such a short attention span and feel the need to cruise through blogs rather than typing about torn ligaments in the knee and torn rotator cuffs in the shoulder.

But I digress.

Today is an orange day.

Interestingly enough, that ties into a really great giveaway from Fairytale Pumpkin.

I'm a big fan of finding quilting inspiration from various places. Like color inspiration from magazines.

Turns out, I'm not alone. Christa found her latest design inspiration from Sunset magazine:

And then she went on to design a great journaling template, usable for so many different things. Pictures of your kids' first day at school, some quilting designs you want to document, a trip you took this summer.


And here's the great thing about this orangey goodness. As if it wasn't enough that her logo is so creative (and orange!) and that fact that she figured out to make her own button (which totally impressed me), Fairytale Pumpkin is having a giveaway! I know! I couldn't believe it either!

So now you too can have an Orange Wednesday!

I highly recommend it. If you, like me, aren't a particularly huge fan of Wednesday, at least not until your work is done, then the best thing you can do is add some color to your day and head on over to Fairytale Pumpkin.

Monday, August 23, 2010

My week in color

I'm taking an online course:

 

and I have been thinking about color a lot. Not unusual. I'm always thinking about fabric, playing with different color schemes. And I'm a little behind on my homework (sorry, Brandi--you're a great instructor, I'm just a procrastinator as a student...) but some of the assignments made me want to visually explore this a little more:

Ever since I was little, in my mind I have always associated the days of the week with certain colors. Monday is always yellow, Thursday is always kind of a raspberry color. Not red. And I really like red. But Thursday isn't red, it is raspberry. And I really like green. But there is no day that is green.

Today I decided to see what my week looks like. In fabric.


Now that it is all laid out, it looks kind of weird to me. And I wonder how I came to associate brown with Friday and gray with Saturday.

Not a clue...

Do you associate a certain color with a certain event? Do tell...

Friday, August 20, 2010

A perfect combination

My husband, my hexies, a new novel, and this view:

Have a fun and relaxing weekend. See you on Monday.

Nickaleena!

A couple of weeks ago I posted some pictures of hexies for the exchange I was in, and put this  little owl on the top of the stack. Because he is cute.

I got an email from Nicki asking what the fabric line was, she really liked the fabric and might like to do a search for it. I told her I had no clue--I had already trimmed off the selvage (hehe), but since I had a half yard and really didn't need that much, I would happily send her a quarter yard. She wanted to pay for it, at least shipping. I told her it was only a quarter yard, would cost hardly anything to mail it, so off in the mail to her it went.


A couple of days later I received an email from her asking what kind of colors I like. I thought, hmmm, maybe she found a piece of fabric she was going to send me; maybe she felt more comfortable doing an exchange. Completely not necessary but it would be fun to see what she sent.

Yesterday a package arrived in the mail. This is what I found inside:

Sterling silver, black onyx and rose quartz.
Sterling silver, turquoise, freshwater pearls.

Aren't they gorgeous?? I was speechless. All I did was send a little quarter yard of fabric. My stash won't even miss it.

These earrings are exquisite. Thanks, Nicki!

And this is why I love quilting and blogging. You meet the nicest people.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Color Therapy Thursday--the Pyrex Orange Crush edition

In perusing some new quilting blogs lately, I have noticed a couple of quilters who are also collectors of vintage pyrex. After looking at my Tupperware, some of which is really yucky dated itself, I would like a more attractive and sustainable alternative. Etsy, oh how easy you make it for me to fuel my "orange crush."

Circle Creek Home:


 Marianne Clare:

Two Little Owls:

Vintage Soup:

Faith and Franny:


Aren't these stunning examples of vintage Pyrex?

It's completely hard for me to believe that August is halfway over. Why do I even bring that up? Well, because that means that the holidays are (yikes) just around the corner. You know what I mean: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hannukah, etc. Now why would I include Thanksgiving in that group? A holiday certainly but not generally considered a gift-giving occasion.

Oh, wait. I do believe my birthday falls on Thanksgiving Day this year.

Just sayin'....for anyone out there who finds this information to be interesting or helpful. Mark? Christa? Aaron? Ferris?  Anyone? Anyone?

Monday, August 16, 2010

One if by land, two if by sea

When you are part of an owner group of rental cabins dating back to about 1917, there is a lot to do. The usual stuff: leaky plumbing because those pipes are old, touch-up painting and cabin repair. Those are the things we can always count on.

Then are the unexpected things:

An injured osprey that a guest brought back to the cabins. Hmmm. We weren't even quite sure who to call.


I can tell you one thing if it's an emergency by land: we get quick response and we get a lot more than one answering the call.


We had several response teams, none of whom was really sure what to do. They finally took the osprey down to the Fresno area and then we heard he was moved to a wild life center closer to the Bay Area. And finally released back to our area. Not sure about that. But it seemed like there were several osprey circling above our cabins for a while trying to find their lost friend.

Sometimes a guest will twist an ankle or something while hiking.


Again. Fast response and lots of it.

It's a little more nerve-wracking when it involves your granddaughter's injured elbow. In this case, we had the response team but they couldn't fix the elbow.

But Levi was pretty happy to stand near the fire truck.


And while Charlotte looks a bit like a movie star here, ultimately her parents had to drive her down to the children's hospital in Fresno to put her dislocated elbow back into place.

Yesterday we really did have "two by sea." Well, okay, "lake." Saturday, all the way across the lake, the forest service had cut down a tree because people kept putting a rope swing on it. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that people would swing out over the water, get scared, not let go, and then swing back and hit the tree. Is the same thought running through your head as mine? Like either let go and fall into the water. Or don't do the whole rope swing thing in the first place.

So anyway...they just cut it down and left. It drifted to the marina of the guy who has a business directly across the lake from us. It got tangled in one of his boats, with the potential to cauase a lot of damage. So at 10:30 at night he got it loose from the boat and set it adrift. And it drifted all the way across the lake to our shore, right at one of our best fishing holes, and in the afternoon it started drifting toward our dock, with the potential then to smoosh our boats. So Mark called the forest service and basically said, "Come take care of your tree."

We got the forest service and the sheriff's department, all tryingto figure out how to tug the tree away from us and to somewhere more safe.

It was pretty funny interesting to watch.

And as they finally figured out how to drag it away, these two drifted right in front of my camera...

Friday, August 13, 2010

Customized--the Aloha edition

I think we have firmly established my selvage obsession so we no longer need to touch on that topic and how I obsessively categorize them into "themes."

So let's move on to my new favorite thing to do with selvages, which is actually a subcategory of the whole "theme idea." Specific customization. Isn't that a fancy-schmancy term to apply to something that is basically being saved from the recycle bin.

Anyhoo....when Diane approached me about making a customized pincushion, I said, "Bring it on." She lives in Honolulu and sent me the most amazing collection of selvages, some she definitely wanted in the pincushion and the rest I could keep for future pincushions. (Yes, I see a pincushion or two named "Aloha" here before too long.)

She wanted her name, and requested "Dance with me, Henry" (kudos to Jennifer Paganelli for all the great things that go on her selvages, and of course, Alexander Henry). She also included a hot pink vintage selvage which read "the cockeyed mayor of Kuanakakai." She told me it is the main and practially only town on the little island of Molokai, and she had an uncle who used to always hula to that song. What a fun memory.

The fabric she sent for the back had me humming "Lovely Hula Hands" the whole time I was sewing. It is possible I even tried swinging my hips once or twice while at the cutting table.

Kinda made me want to order one of these from ebay.

But I stopped myself just in time, and focused on a search for my other current obsession, Flea Market Fancy grey seeds fabric. Just thought I'd throw that in. As a shameless plea. You know....in case you're reading this and have some scraps and don't know what to do with them...

Mahalo.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Home Shopping Network

Yesterday I was feeling inspired by some fabric scraps. Today I did some shopping. From my own stash.

This is the answer to the question that constantly runs through Mark's mind, although he is wise enough not to ask out loud: Why are you buying more fabric when you already have so much??

So when you are inspired, the stores are not open, and you can't wait days for fabric to be delivered to your mailbox, you can just shop at home. (Along those lines, he has threatened to do a guest post on my stash, as he feels like I'm not in the "full dislosure" mode when I write about it. I'll consider it... when I decide whether it will make me proud...or embarrassed.)

I have been collecting solids. Thank you, Robert Kaufman Kona cotton, Moda Bella solids, Amy Butler and Anna Maria Horner.

While the inspiration fabric is a charcoal background with some raisin squares, I'm going to switch it around. Wonky squares, perle cotton big stitch quilting.

I really like all these solids together.


In this quilt, instead of just solids, what do you think of a square of Echino here and there just for interest? (even though they didn't photograph as quite the same color, the turquoise solid and the Echino are nearly identical).

Off to the cutting board...

Monday, August 9, 2010

Monday Musings

Just some random thoughts.

I was going through some of my fabric the other day and came across this fat 1/8 (the one on the left). I'm not sure I like it enough to put it in a quilt. However...I like it enough to use it as inspiration for a quilt. I'm picturing some solids or nearly solids against either Kona charcoal or raisin, with some big-stitch quilting, all kinda wonky. Thoughts?


Do you ever order fabric from freshsqueezed fabrics? Randi has superb customer service and she always includes a couple of 5" charm squares. I've done a variety of things with them: included them in a quilt, used them as backing for pincushions, or, like this one (the one on the right in the picture above), cut a chunk out for my charm hexagon quilt.  Then I pictured another quilt based on this little 5" piece of fabric as inspiration. I don't know that I would have thought to put these colors altogether, but I'm kind of liking them in this swatch. I hope they translate into 5" squares and still look good together on a larger scale.

Sandi Henderson has designed some of my favorite fabric (Henna Garden, how I love you...), and a couple of months ago I did a pattern test for Saffron Craig, using Meadowsweet fabric. Here is the skirt on my model. I ended up making some adjustments/changes, but I guess that is the whole purpose of pattern testing. My favorite part (aside from the adorable model) is the plaid band around the bottom of the hem.


And speaking of Saffron, she has a new line of fabric out. I just received 1/2 yard cuts (and yes that means I'm out of fabric money for the month...) and she included this pile of selvages. And you all know how happy that makes me, right?



Friday, August 6, 2010

Friday's feature presentation

A couple of my quilts, along with a short interview, are being featured over at Amy's Creative Side today.

Amy's Creative Side

And I didn't even realize it until a few minutes ago because she had changed some settings so nothing was coming up on my blogroll. Yikes!

Amy has a wonderful blog and is the creative genius behind Blogger's Quilt Festival. So if you want to learn some truly fascinating and personal information about me (just kidding....), head on over to Amy's Creative Side.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

And the winners are...

The random number generator chose #2 and #13 for the Lilly Pulitzer cheater cloth:


#2 is Terriaw who said: I have not seen this cheater print - it's gorgeous! Great idea to use it for your hexagon project. I've been dying to get on the hexagon bandwagon, so this would be a perfect start.

And #13 is Four dogs and one quilter who said: Love the cheater print, I'm doing a hexi charm too.

Email me with your contact information and I'll get that fabric into the mail.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Tuesday giveaway

About a month ago, I jumped on the hexie bandwagon. Thanks to Texas Freckles, I'm making a charm quilt, so every hexie will be different.

I found this really great Lilly Pulitzer "cheater" fabric. Each square has the bright and happy prints that Lilly Pulitzer is famous for, and each is 4 inches. There are quite a few different  designs in each fabric repeat. But I only need one of each. So....something to give away.

Does anyone want these? Are you making hexies too? If not, what other ideas do you have for this fabric?




Just leave a comment and the random number generator will pick two winners on Thursday, 5 p.m. PST.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Monday Mailbox

INCOMING:
We were out of town last week, so I went to the post office this morning to retrieve this package that arrived. From India.

They spend a lot of time on packaging. Here is my package, from the outside in: a cloth envelope, whipstitched closed by hand on the back.

Then sewn shut by machine:


Then covered in mesh-backed paper:


Then covered in plastic. Getting closer...

Finally. Beautiful napkins to go with my Fiestaware dishes:


OUTGOING:
To my hexie swap partner:


These little owls always want to steal the show.


A bag to put them in (because hexies should travel in style, in a little fabric bag made out of hexagon fabric!)


All tied and ready to go:


My adorable little hexagon helper, looking extra cool in his shades. He always looks so serious when he is sorting these hexies. Apparently it takes a lot of concentration.