The Mother Lode of Fabric Arrived Yesterday!

I have gone on a bit of a buying spree lately, to ahem, put it mildly.  One of the shipments was delayed, so everything showed up yesterday.  I almost had to make two trips from the mail box because the stack of priority boxes was so big!  The unusual thing about these purchases is that I have a plan for everything.  Normally I am either just stash building, or collecting fabrics of some type for a future quilt.  Not this time.  All that means is that I need to get using this stuff right away.  No pressure or anything LOL. 

The first order I had placed that got delayed was for these two cute little fat eighth bundles from Moda.  I think it was genius when they came up with these bundles.  Fat quarter bundles are just too much for so many of us, and a fat eighth bundle is more usable than two layer cakes.  Oh, and I got both of these from Judi & Clint at Green Fairy Quilts.  This was my first order from them, and I will definitely order again.  After my budget recovers from these latest purchases!

The first one is Max & Whiskers by Basic Grey.  Did you know that this fabric line is also available as scrapbook paper, which Basic Grey also designs?  In fact, I think they started out designing scrapbook paper and then extended that into fabric.  In any event, here is my little bundle of Max & Whiskers.  I plan to make an applique quilt with it, already have the layout, etc. pictured in my mind, but will leave you wondering until I actually get around to making it.

The second fat eighth bundle I got is Lovely by Sandy Gervais.  Sandy is one of my favorite fabric designers, but usually I'm drawn to her autumn and dot fabrics.  For some reason, I was really drawn to the color palate of this line even though  floral prints are not something I work with a lot and there are quite a few in this line.  My plan for this bundle is a Schnibbles Times 2 quilt by Carrie Nelson, pattern still to be selected.

And now to the really big purchases.  I am not a coffee drinker, except for occasional coffee shop splurges, but that doesn't stop me from loving coffee themed fabrics.  Especially those by Deb Strain for Moda.  Last summer I found some of her Bistro line on sale, so picked up some pieces in the blue/tan colorway.  On Saturday while avoiding on a break from work, I was poking around the Burgundy Buttons site just for fun.  Note to self...if you stop just "poking around" you will probably stop making so many purchases!  Anyway, I found the Java fabric line by Deb Strain on sale.  Within 30 minutes I had selected a pattern, another Carrie Nelson pattern, Radio Flyer, figured out that the FQ bundle had the perfect amount of fabric for it, found border and binding fabrics from the line also on sale, and placed my order.

And then I realized that A) I really didn't like the two major colorways of the line all mixed together, which meant I didn't have enough fabric for the quilt, and B) I couldn't figure out where the orange and green really fit in with the rest and wondered why they were even in the line, particularly the orange.  To me, that is really out of place.  So now I was stuck with a pattern I wanted to make and not enough fabric and remembering why I make scrap quilts and not quilts from specific fabric lines!

I thought about it for a bit and then started wondering what my chances were of getting more of the Bistro fabric line, even though it came out in October 2008.  When I am looking for older items like this my first stop is Ebay and once again, Ebay came through.  What are the chances of finding an entire FQ bundle of Bistro on Ebay, just when I needed it, on sale and with free shipping?  I figured it was meant to be and bought it immediately.  Both orders arrived yesterday and here are the fabrics in all of their loveliness.  I actually like the Bistro line better overall, but there are also some great fabrics in the Java line that I can't wait to use.  Java is on the left and Bistro is on the right.

The current plan is still to make Radio Flyer with the Red/Black/Brown colorway and use the red yardage you see for the outer border and the brown fabric below it for the inner border and binding.  Then I want to make a second quilt with the Blue/Tan/Cream colorway, with possibly some of the green from Bistro thrown in.  The green and orange in the Java line are definitely out at this point.  The oranges will fit in perfectly with my autumn fabric stash and the greens can just go in the general stash.  The blues are different, with the Java blue having sort of a teal tint to it, but I think they can work together when mixed with the tans and creams.  So that is what arrived in the mail yesterday and my plans for it.

If you want a better look at both lines, here are links to them on the Moda site:

http://www.unitednotions.com/fcc_java.pdf

http://www.unitednotions.com/fcc_bistro.pdf

I've also still been plugging away on getting fabrics ready for the dot quilt, so I'll have a progress update on that soon.  As well as the pictures of my finished bedroom.  I got so busy, I forgot that I had never done that post and I got a reminder about it last week.  Soon, I promise.



A Sneak Peek

Even though I still haven't sewn the backing for Chocolate Covered Cherries, I have technically started on my next project.  What can I say...I have a very short attention span!  But the backing will get sewn.  And soon. 

Here is a sneak peek at the next project:

It all started with this, a pile of dot fabrics that Wanda sent me awhile back.  She saw my post about all of the new dot fabrics I had purchased and asked if I wanted her leftovers from her dot quilt.  Duh, of course I wanted them!  I love playing with other people's scraps.  Even better than playing with my own lol.  And now I have a plan for them and am almost ready to get started.  I need to go through some more fabric and then I should be ready to go. 

It's been awhile since I've posted any pictures of the feline members of the household.  That is because I've hardly taken any!  Shocking I know.  But I did get a few of Sassy helping with dinner on Sunday.  

Hmmm, what's this thing that has cool water droplets on the top and smells good?

Maybe I should get a closer look...



And how about a view from the other side?

Maybe touching it will help me figure out what this is...

She was totally fascinated with the crock pot for about 10 minutes and then finally gave up and left.  Oh, and she's also trained me to run water for her in the front bathroom sink so she can drink it while it's running *sigh*.  I don't know why I do those things for that cat.  It's not like it keeps her out of trouble LOL.











Chocolate Covered Cherries Top is Done!

This will be another short post as it's a work day (no day is without work at this point in tax season), as well as yard work day if the weather cooperates later.  Anyway, I finished sewing the borders on Chocolate Covered Cherries last night, so the top is officially done!  Woo hoo!  I had to wait until this morning to get pictures as the lighting in my sewing room is not very good at night.  I hope to remedy that once tax season is over.

Here is the finished top:

I also pulled out the backing fabric that I purchased some time ago.  All it needs is pressing, the yardage cut in half, salvages trimmed off, and a quick seam lengthwise to sew the two pieces together.  I'd like to get that done today, but we'll see.  Here's the backing fabric laying with the top.  The binding will be the same pink as in the top and it is already cut, but not sewn together and pressed.

And here's a bigger picture of the backing fabric.  It will run lengthwise as shown on the back of the quilt. 



It has been a very productive week both work-wise and in the sewing room for sure.  I finally have some decent energy to get things done.  I started giving Maya a benedryl before bed each night, so she is finally mostly sleeping through the night again, which means I am too.  Thank goodness.  And I also broke down on Monday and called for antibiotics for a suspected sinus infection after trying natural remedies to kick it.  After a couple of days on the antibiotics I started feeling much, much better.  Just in time to start putting in those 11 and 12 hour days for work LOL.



Chocolate Covered Cherries Progress

This post will be short and sweet as I have to get back to work, but I wanted to show you my progress on Chocolate Covered Cherries.  After working 11 hours on Thursday and 12 hours yesterday, I decided to reward myself with some sewing time today.  All of the rows are now sewn together and I got two of the inner borders on.  Six more border seams and I should have a finished quilt top!

Edit #2:  The picture warning problem is fixed!  I tried Wanda's suggestion that she left in the comments and it worked, so if any of you fellow bloggers are having the same problem, try editing the post, removing the picture, and adding it again.  Thanks Wanda!

Edit: It seems that if you click on the picture to make it larger, you will get a message that this site is unsafe.  I got the same message while viewing a few other blogs this morning, so I suspect it is a blogger problem.  I went ahead and sent something to Microsoft anyway, but it will probably take awhile before the warning goes away.

All laid out and ready to assemble!

I started work extra early today in hopes that I could squeeze in some quilting time to get the rest of the Chocolate Covered Cherries units ready for assembly.  I managed to find time to do that this morning so here is the quilt center all ready to sew together.  With borders, the quilt should finish about 60 x 72, so a nice lap size.

Yesterday I discovered that my feline friends were apparently very pleased that I had raked up the leaves from under the Ficus trees.  They were out in force pecking around.  I particularly like the quail.  I buy a special block of food just for quail to keep them coming around and then throw out regular bird food too, which the other birds seem to like.  This picture of the birds in the yard was taken through the patio door and I think it turned out pretty good even through the glass. 



Earlier in the day there were four quail out pecking around.  I tried to sneak out the door to get some pictures of them, but they got spooked and flew up on the wall.  I got a nice picture of one of them and another picture of most of the group.  If you look closely, there are three quail on the wall in the second picture.  The fourth one went into the tree.



And now it is back to work for me!  It is tax season after all lol.



I finally sewed!!!

Yes, it's true.  I finally sat down at my sewing machine last night for the first time in two months.  After I spent an hour finding where I'd put everything else that I needed to actually sew lol.  Then I had to find a project that my tax season strapped brain could handle, and one that was ready to sew.  I finally remembered that I had Chocolate Covered Cherries all cut out and waiting patiently in my project box.  Perfect! 

This is an ideal project for fairly mindless power sewing.  With only two fabrics, and a simple block, Bento Box, it is pretty easy to keep the pieces straight, although I did have to unsew one unit last night.  Other than that, it has gone very smoothly.  Between an hour of sewing last night and a few more hours today, I've got all of the block segments sewn with about a third pressed and ready to sew into blocks. 

Here is my pile of organized block components just waiting to be sewn together.

I matched all of the pieces up for each step and then chain sewed them all before moving on to the next piece.  Here's the pile of units from one of those sessions.  This made the whole process go really fast.  Match, sew, press, repeat.



And finally, here are the block units that I have done and laid out.  Four units combine to make one block and my quilt will be 4 blocks by 5 blocks, plus borders.

And a closeup of the fabrics in one block.  Dots, batiks, and brights.  What's not to love for me in this quilt!