Fabric & Pattern Selection Process

Choosing fabric for a project can be pretty intuitive or difficult for some. Sometimes I fall in love with a quilt pattern and then take my time hunting down the perfect fabric. Some patterns just scream modern to me and I want to get bright, bold colors. Take Anna Marie Horner's Good Folks line, perfect for a fresh modern pattern.

These are some cuts I ordered that just arrived on Monday from the wonderful Sew Fabulous Quilt Store .

(I have to say Jenny did a fabulous job getting them to me FAST, I placed my order on Saturday and they arrived Monday!)

I saw a quilt pattern consisting of diamonds featuring Tula Pink's original Flutterby collection and just had to get some cuts from that line because the bright pinks, yellows, green, blues and reds all blended beautifully:

I know that diamond pattern I saw will look great in any color scheme, but now I can't imagine using my Flutterby fabric for any other pattern :)


I love sampler quilts. I love how different block patterns and block sizes play off of each other. I like that you can decide to add a few blocks with embroidery or don't have any at all. Sampler quilts can be adapted to each persons desired look and ability. I have found many civil war samplers I admire and I want the one I make to employ neutral prints with subtle color tones. I chose William Morris Workshop because of it's range of Indigo blues, rusty reds, gray-greens and light blues.
I think designer Heather Ross is a happy medium of modern and vintage; her fabric lines usually feature bright colors with small, delicate prints that encapsulate a modern color with a vintage feel.

Some prints from Heather Ross "Far, Far Away" collection:



Many times I just fall in love with fabric lines, buy them and decide to use the line as I go . . . like the Henry Glass "Shade Garden" line by Michelle Engel Bencsko :
Here are a few of the cuts I ordered from his line...




But mainly I just like to mix lines together. No one says you have to use all fabrics of the same line in one project. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for Moda and other Designer's precut strips, FQ's and layer cakes. Sometimes I will use just one designer line in a quilt, tote or project.

For example, my Moda "Mill House Inn" Layer Cake duvet cover:


But the "scrappy" effect allows me to achieve the perfect medium of colors for most patterns.

I (like many other fabric obsessed sewers) have some bold, unique or out-of-print fabrics that so far I haven't been able to make myself cut into them. LOL they can sit in my fabric bins until I can bear it.

I think doing your own thing and loving your results is the best part of sewing and creating stuff. You can use the same pattern numerous times but get different results every time just by using different color schemes and using the same fabric's in different quilt patterns can result in truly unique quilts. Have fun!

Today is our local library BOOK sale!

So excited, I think books and fabric are on an equal scale of obssessive love and needing to have for me.


And here is my cat Gabriel with a close-up of his heart shaped marking ...we've called him "heart-butt" since he was a kitten and we noticed his cute fur feature.


And here he is in profile, my senior boy (turns 13 this July).


Well I am off to score some "new" books to add to my already staggering book shelves LOL Wish me luck on the hunt ;)

What can happen in a month

This pic was taken 2-10-10 the day after we got hit with about 3 feet of snow over a two day period of almost non-stop snow.


And this photo was taken 3-10-10 1 month later...featuring the first blooms of spring, our little purple crocus' in the front of the house.

Anna Marie Horner Good Folks baby blocks

This is the quilt top (so far decided against border)

I love Anna Marie Horner's Good Folks line it is so bright and fun and plays off other contemporary fabric lines so well. I decided to make a baby quilt (40" x 50") The quilt top is just waiting on me to decide what to do for the back of the quilt ; )

What I'm working on now - Curves

Here is a block progress pic... with my kitty Arie overseeing my layout :0) I started this on 4-9-10 weekend.

I adore Heather Bailey's Pop Garden so I decided to mix and match to create a bright, red, peach, aqua-blue, mustard, orange green and gray quilt top... and I'm attempting curved piecing for the first time and LOVING it!

The thought of stitching curved or circular pieces always scared me, now I can't believe how many cool projects I passed on because of them and they really are simple if you cut out your pieces to a uniform size. That is key. Also, give your wrist a rest from rotary cutting and use a fresh blade to decrease wrist fatigue and hand cramping while cutting around the curved templates.

Batik stars and 3D blocks

I was going to make a 3D batik block (here is my sample block)... Started making these the first week in March.











Then I tried batik Stars and decided to go with a traditional star layout at this time... I will come back to the 3D layout on another quilt I'm sure :)















Below are some of the layouts I played around with... that is such a fun aspect of the quilting process. I recommend changing layouts, you never know you may discover a whole new look or find your next quilt top layout just by changing around block pieces. ;)

Spring quilts - Cheep Chirp!

I've been loving bird fabrics so I finally finished that UFO modern block Spring lap quilt I cut and pieced back in November 2009. Finished size (unwashed) 52" x 58". I just love the way the orange, brown and turquoise colors pop out at you and the bird fabric is so subtle. Gonna be hard to part with this one!








Back of quilt... just used strips of leftover fabric from front and hand sewed the brown binding to the back. I always machine stitch the binding to the front but hand sew the back binding so it has a nice clean finished look. I think sewing the binding is my favorite part of the quilt process, so relaxing and the knowledge that it's the last step before completion rocks!







My other Bird quilt is a bright toddler/ baby quilt. I used the super soft fabric collection
"Cheep Talk" and LOVE the colors too!



The Quilt is basted with safety pins and ready to quilt so I will the completed quilt pics at a later date...isn't this fabric scrumptious!?

New record for me!

Wow it's taken me 4 months to visit my OWN blogger account LOL.... even though I've had no problem visiting my fellow crafter pages and favorite blogger websites (daily!) UGh... well at least while on my hiatus from blogging I have been sewing and cutting quite a few projects and getting some of my UFO's finished. Yeah!!

I came down with a sever sinus infection right at the beginning of the new year and it took me about a month to fully recover after taking lots of antibiotics. I am back home in Lancaster, PA but will be heading heading back to NC in about 2 weeks.

I missed the Lancaster Quilt show :(
But hope to make the July quilt show if I am in the area still.

I'll post a few pics of just some of the stuff I've been doing.... haven't been taking pics as often as I should :)