Cyber Shopaholic

Ok, I couldn't resist ... Poppy Seed Fabrics, who I've been following since I think it was a tutorial they did on Madam Sam's Sew We Quilt blog ... well, they announced a 24-hour sale for Cyber Monday. So, all items were 25% off ... and I do love a bargain, and they had some lovely fabrics!

So I now have an etsy account and a bundle of fabric winging its way to me! It's kind of an early Christmas present! ... I found a total of $27 in fabric, saved a wonderful $7 (almost) on the order ... which nearly covered the $9 postage! ... but all in all I think I've got a good deal, even if the postage costs are always the downside of mail ordering!

So here's what I bought... fingers crossed the thumbnails will work even if I've snapped the last sale yards of an item! ... we shall see!

I picked these 2 Robert Kaufman greys. I've always fancied that line of fabrics (they sound nice quality) At $3 each for half a yard of each, you can't really go wrong - $5.50 for a yard of Robert Kaufman after discount!

As for what I'll use them for, well I have no idea, but I thought they might come in handy! (when I die my epitaph will read "I knew this hole in the ground would come in handy one day ... now where's that pillow I was hanging on to?")






Then there was this in the sale section... Tanya Whelan Dolce Bamboo Garden in PINK, 1 YarD for $7. I thought it looked really nice (I could see the pattern on it, even if I can't really tell the colors any more).



Another sale item... Tina Givens-Opal Owl, TRELLIS IN CHOCOLATE, 1 yard total for $7.75 ... though I'm not quite sure what the total means - there were about 4 different thumbnails on the item page, so it might be I get owls, or it might be I get Japanese style huts, or maybe something else entirely! They all seemed nice though so I thought it well worth the price (about $6 after discount).



And finally, another sale item! (I do like a sale!!) ... Poppy Seed Fabric have quite a lot of Japanese fabrics, and I'm after a few which might work together. This one is little GEISHA DOLLS japanese import , 1 yard for $7 ($5.25 after discount)



So there you have it, a productive Monday's shopping!Hopefully I can put these, plus my recent prize threads, and maybe a pattern or two out of my growing library of (3) quilting books! And don't forget, you can never have too many bits of fabric!!! (or cups of tea!)

Squeeeee

My, this update is long overdue isn't it?! (that's definitely rhetorical!)

So, over the last 2 or so weeks I had some nice luck! First of all my 3rd place prize from Men Quilt Too competition arrived on the doorstep! It was this:

A lovely box full of Aurifil thread! I'm sure these will keep me going for about a year!!

And then, I was one of The Chosen over on Sarah (Narcoleptic in a Cupboard)'s blog! And my prize was this lovely book - Dare to be Square by Boo Davis http://tinyurl.com/c6j5aws . which is full of pictures, many of which I can see (or see enough of to get the idea! all the patterns are bold colours which means I can see the contrasts!) of quilt patterns using squares! ... I always knew it was hip to be a square, and this book proves it ... even if I am a little dodecahedral at the edges!

Talking of books... yesterday I went to Joanne's to look for something $10-or-less for the quilt club Secret Santa. The only restriction was no fabric! I found this book marked at $10, Free Motion Quilting, From Practice to Perfection (I think that's the title!).95 and thought it would be perfect! So when we got to the checkout it turned out to be $24!!!! now that's a pretty price for a book no matter how nice! But, I had a 50% off coupon so bought it anyway ...

Now I'm having second thoughts because it is a bit much value for the Secret Santa and I don't want to be not in-keeping with the other folk ... so I might take it back ... pennies are a bit tight, what with having to replace the Jeep a couple of weeks ago (and then the wheel bearings last week!), and with all the medical bills and Christmas coming up... I can't really afford to keep it no matter how much I'd like to. lol, but I shall try photographing it and OCRing the pages before I return it... whether that will work is anyone's guess, but it might!

Apart from that I'm afraid I haven't done much quilting ... I did get a new pack of the self-threading needles yesterday, and they do appear to be a lot sharper which is what I wanted, so maybe I'll have a productive week with my new needles :) ... I haven't forgotten that a couple of you asked about those needles and I did try to take a photo but without any success... but there is information on the web and this link ... and here is more general info for those who are visually-challenged or just find threading needles tricky! (apparently they are very good for burying your thread ends inside a quilt - when you finish with a piece of thread you don't knot it, which can create a noticeable lump- you just leave the end loose and then thread it onto one of these needles, and you can then sew it into the center of your quilt! ... or something like that ... Google it if you want instructions, there's lots of pages about it!)

Between Now and the End of the World

I've noticed a lot of you more-organized-than-moi bloggers making lists of all your projects. So, here's my list!

I'm not assigning any priority to this list, it's just a list of things I'd like to accomplish sometime... and since the world is due to end in 2012, I've nominally selected the end of the world as my target date, or whenever the cups of tea and biscuits run out, whichever happens soonest.

If this post appears garbled as you first read it, bear with me... there's going to be lots of links to other blogs or pictures, so it's quite possible I'll need to make corrections if I type the code wrong or miss out a quote mark for example! In fact, I'm far from sure I've got all the links to the pictures right, so sorry if there's some random photo which doesn't relate!

So here goes.

Between Now and the End of the World I would Like To Finish:

• My second quilt, based on the Rainy Day Quilt posted by Quilting in the Rain as part of Madam Sam's 3-month series on Sew We Quilt. My version has lots of fabrics with clouds, raindrops, yellow duckies and rainy day sayings, but I don't have a photo yet, so here's the original:
• Charity block for Irondequoit Quilt Club. This is simply a 9x7 square block of a wide variety of colors, each one alternating with a lightly patterned white square. I've been making decent progress with this over the last couple of weeks! Sorry, no photos yet!
• Now for the ones I haven't even started yet... Coasters, as designed by
  Laura from Quokka Quilts. I'm really looking forward to creating many of these, and some of you lucky folk may be on the receiving end one day! I'm just struggling to pick out appropriate fabrics, though this week I decided that one of the lovely black and white fabrics that Thearica from Pigtales and Quilts sent me would work nicely, so I just need some less-busy fabrics for the rest of that set... I'm thinking some subtle patterned pink and grey would work well.
• Flowers, as featured in this tutorial on Sew We Quilt. These sound so pretty and easy and a great use of scrap material... though I'm finding the step-by-step instructions to be a little confusing... mainly because I can't really see what's going on in the photos. I may be picking your brains for some tips in due course! I've already started collecting leafy patterns and bright flowery colored fabrics for these! Here's the original pic
• More coasters! Another tutorial from Sew We Quilt, the style of which seems quite similar to the squares I'm doing for my Rainy Day Quilt, with the borders around the squares. I like the apparent simplicity of these and will probably try a couple of sets!
• Black and White Quilts. I stumbled across these from a comment left on my blog from a reader of the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side. These 2 quilts are from Eileen's Ladybug Lovelies blog and I can see the contrasting patterns. I love the simplicity of the Bountiful Baskets quilt, and if I can manage a Supernova quilt I'd like to try that too! First photo is the Supernova and here's the Bountiful Basket ... and here's an alternative Supernova in a step-by-step that Sarah from Narcoleptic in A cupboard told me about.
  
• Bowls - another from the Sew We Quilt tutorials. This quilted bowl (which I can't find the link to...) struck me because it seemed an unusual thing to make by quilting! I'm not sure if I'll get around to this one, but maybe, time permitting.
• I have a design idea for a belt, well more a sash. I would bow to you ladies if you don't think it would work! Imagine a small square, say 3 inches square, or even slightly rectangle seems to look quite nice. Attach thin strips to two opposite ends (like the individual squares in my Rainy Day Quilt). Now, imagine as you are putting the quilt together, you sew each one in turn, pairing two of them with a layer of batting between. However the batting is only as wide as the center square, so you sew / quilt along the sides of that center square, and then you finish the border strips separately, so they have no batting inside. Them. Then you turn them to make a diamond shape and in the point of one of the borders you make a button hole in one of the strips and sew a button in the point of the other strip. Repeat, and when you've finished you can join all the individual units together, buttoning one to the next, forming a belt or sash that you can wear around your waste! (or if you're a gunslinger you can wear it across your shoulders and stick your bullets to it, for that stylish mercenary look). No pics for this yet, it lives only in my wild imagination!
• and I'd forgotten about this until I was going through the list of Sew We Quilt tutorials again.... a quick and easy drawstring bag, which I liked the sound of )I've always liked drawstrings!)
• Finally, and this is unlikely to see the light of day, but I had an idea for a modern Christmas table runner, many of which you all were making for the Crafty Christmas Club I think. I thought a modern style runner but with a snowflake-like jagged piece of lace-type material attached to the back, and another piece attached to the front and kind of overlapping the gaps of the back strip might look nice. Of course this might be fiddly to make, even assuming I could find suitable material, but it's an interesting idea and I'm sure it'll keep until next year, assuming the world doesn't end as planned...

Hope you enjoyed that scenic detour into my ideas! If I achieve a couple of these I'll be happy :)

Do tell me what you think, especially any suggestions, even if it's a "it'll never work" lol.

Oh yes, and at some point I want to make things with triangles and circles, and maybe one of those lovely Dahlia designs as a medallion quilt ...