Friday, October 22, 2010

Look what just arrived!


spoonflower order
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea
My order from Spoonflower just arrived and I'm just so excited! When Heather Ross announced on her blog that she had some new fabrics available on Spoonflower for a short while, I knew the time had come to take action. I had been playing with my own design for a while, but decided to just test go for it and order a yard along with some favourites from other designers. I'm using the word "designer" with tongue firmly placed in cheek as it applies to myself. All I have done, after all, is list some of the bus stops along my local line from my time in London way back.
I have mentioned earlier my fascination for those bus destination blinds that have become so popular. They have proved to be very hard to come by, and I also realized that a full length bus blind would be difficult to hang in a small flat.

Then I came up with the idea of making my own in miniature. I googled the #72 bus to get the names of all the bus stops, and edited the list firmly to get a workable format. I got a bit impatient, otherwise I would have tweaked my picture file a bit to get a full repeat, but there you have it. On my 1 yard sample I get four full lists and four with the first three stops missing, but never mind, that will do for now. I want to make a wall hanging with one, maybe a pillow and a shopping bag, and the rest might just be cut into pieces and used here and there. But I guess I will be ordering more. I might work with the design, maybe go for less of the black background and get two full repeats to the yard. A friend of mine wants curtains from this design, so I might just make it available for sale if there is any interest after my tweaking, we'll see.
And I also got some beautiful designs from others - go to my Flickr photos to get details and links to the other designs.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Big block

My first block for the new quilt is finished and it is huge! 22" in fact. I am really not used to working on such a grand scale, but at least I get results rather quickly. In fact, once I had finished this one, it didn't take me long to piece the first seams of the rest of the blocks. There are only six blocks, after all. I'm chain piecing, and stitching as many seams as I can on each block before pressing, so it shouldn't take me long to finish the rest. I quite like the effect of these big pieces - you really get to see the beautiful patterns on all the fabrics this way. After a while where I just didn't feel like sewing at all, it seems like my sewing mojo has returned and my head is bursting with ideas. I have so many new plans that I really need more hours in the day to make them all happen.
I'm also working on that fruit tablecloth and there is that pile of batting for mug rugs to begin to tackle. A bag for my laptop and two finished quilt tops ready to be quilted, well, I certainly have enough to do in my spare time! And I haven't even begun to think about Christmas...

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Colour and shape

I went into a bookstore to get a birthdaycard yesterday and as so often happens, I came away with more than I had planned on buying. No books this time, but somehow I just "needed" these bookmarks. Marketeers really know what they are doing, don't they? If these bookmarks had been grey, it would never have occured to me that I needed them, or even if they all were just one colour. A set of eight purple bookmarks? I might have glanced in their direction, but that's it. But the fact that you get a veritable little rainbow of colours? Draws me in every time! I have bought document folders, binders, paperclips, envelopes and of course crayons and pens more times than I care to remember just because they were available in "every colour", and of course you always need the full set...
Not that it is a big deal or anything, just an observation. And look, these are really sweet - I just noticed that they look like little houses! Maybe I can use them as inspiration for something quilty ;-)

This little guy came home with me as well. Luckily they only had him in one colour or I would have come home with a whole family of them. But he is such a clever little chap, that it might even have been a good idea.
Look what he does. He is a book-holder. I always find it a bit difficult to use instruction manuals and the like while working on the computer, but this guy helps. Not only does he hold the book open, but the book can actually stand open on the table next to the computer as well so I can work through the lessons using both hands on the computer and not have to keep propping the book open. Not such a bad day of shopping after all!
I resisted the sweet little clip on lamp to place on the top of your book, but come to think of it, my computer corner can get a bit dark...

Sunday, October 10, 2010

More new plans

I found it! The power switch on my sewing machine, that is ;-) My fruit blocks are coming together and I have started planning a new project. This is my EQ sketch of the new quilt I just started cutting pieces for. The blocks are from the Fat Quarterly blog and they will be huge. 20 x 20 ". I never work that large, but I wanted the different fabrics to be allowed to shine, and big blocks seem to be the way to do it. We'll see how it looks once I get started piecing them together. This will be a lap quilt for my youngest sister who is a bit of a minimalist. Her living room is all neutral: black, white, gray with just some little hints of colour, so I had to run my colour choices by her. I sent her a photo of the pile of fabrics via my mobile asking if these were colours she could live with. The answer was positive, so now she knows I'm up to something. Well, it doesn't hurt to have her wait a while to see excatly what is going on :-)

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Maybe some sewing?

I've been a bit stuck lately. Mountains of fabric surround me, my rotary blade has been sharpened, but I haven't felt up to cutting into fabric. Until today, that is. The plan was to go to a guild meeting, but horrendous weather made it very tempting to stay in, and since I was in a quilty mood anyway, I got some fabric out and started cutting. These fabrics have been lying in wait since early spring. I had meant to make a summery tablecloth, but it never happened. Well, there will be other summers... At least I'm feeling inspired to sew.
Now, how did I turn that sewing machine on...?