Favorite Fabrics for this Summer

Spring Market has come and gone - I am absolutely loving all of the blogs and sneak peeks about what people saw, purchased, and ordered from the new lines coming out this summer. I'm trying to keep my list short so I can save for Sewing Summit and not spend ALL my personal money on fabric - but these 3 I just can't let go :)

1. Brr! by Laurie Wisbrun- coming sooooooooooo soon in June!!

2. Perfectly Perched by Laurie Wisbrun - coming out in July I believe? - A great companion to my full Tufted Tweets set!

 3. Nursery Versery by Heather Ross - I don't have a picture of the full collection but these are my 2 favorite prints and colors from the set. This is a much smaller collection than most of hers which has us all a little disappointed but it is fabulous none-the-less!

Aren't those little spiders just awesome? Itsy Bitsy spider in purple is def my favorite but those mice are just so cute, they are a close second :)

4. I also heard rumors that Red Letter Day by Lizzy House may be re-printed this Fall and may come out in alternate colorways. I love this line so so much and finally have a full FQ set of all the prints! I'm definitely going to be holding onto them in case she comes out with more colors to add to my collection before I make my "lucky duck" quilt :)

Is there anything coming out this Summer/Fall that you are super excited about? I'm trying to be good and keep my wishlist short but I still love knowing what everyone else is excited about! :)

My Precious QAL & a Mother's Day Present

It is the end of the first month of the "My Precious QAL" on flikr. I finally cut into some of my very precious Heather Ross fabric to start a few projects but I wanted to share one that I was able to complete. This is a Mother's Day present for my mom - who absolutely loves cats. I love this HR print with the cats and their names on it and it worked so well for these polaroid blocks. I gave it to her today when we spent some time together and she seemed to like it - which is good because I wanted to keep it myself haha - and I don't even like cats all that much!

It is definitely more my style than hers, but I wanted to share my quirky style with her since she is a lot more traditional, and I think it went over well.

So - there you have it - my first finished project using any of my Heather Ross fabric! It was hard to cut up, espec. since I have such small pieces of this but I did it and survived to sew another day lol.

Stay tuned... there will be more "precious" fabric being cut up from my stash in the next few months - for this QAL and just because I need to finally do it and enjoy it more than just letting it sit on my shelf!

Happy Saturday!

A few projects to share

I've been really bad about taking pictures lately but this weekend I finally remedied that and have a few things to share.

#1 is Chuckles the Aardvark - made into a pillow

Who wouldn't want a rabid aardvark chewing on your face at night? :)

He is super soft - I love this pillow!

#2 is my Moda - Botany log cabin quilt. I started this in 2010 - it was my first jelly roll! I made 55 out of 80 blocks and then it got put into a container and ignored for almost 2 years - poor thing. I really like the way it looks turned on point, maybe I'll be motivated enough to finish it this year!

#3 is my Moda - Hometown Plus Pillow - I'm not in love with it but I enjoyed working with this block pattern. I wouldn't use 2.5 inch squares again because it is WAY too small but it was a good learing experience. I guess I'll finish it at some point and make it into a pillow but not sure what I'll do with it at that point. We shall see.

#4 - last but not least, my Mendocino collection! I FINALLY cut into it and o buddy was that difficult! You see here a pile of triangles cut from 28 of the 38 Mendocino prints in existence. I have a few more to cut and a few more either on their way to me or pending swaps. I might not be able to use the complete collection but it is going to be awesome either way :)

That is all for now - working on the binding for my queen sized bed quilt I got back from the quilter last month. Once that finally gets done I will show some pictures - it turned out GREAT - Michelle is awesome :)

Have a lovely Monday!!

Mendocino - a quest and an obsession!

I will full-out admit that I am obsessed with Heather Ross' Mendocino collection. I should never have gotten started but I did and now I just can't stop, especially when I am SO CLOSE to having them all! lol

Here is a picture of the full collection:

If I counted correctly, there are 38 prints. I have a swap pending for 3 and am only missing 3 otherwise. That means I already own 32 of these prints - yahooooooooooo!

Here are the 3 I am missing still - looking to swap if anyone has a F8 or FQ - I do have a few extra F8s or FQs of other Mendocino prints to swap just for these:

A little background if you don't know about this line. It was printed in 2008 I believe and finding it in 2011/2012 has been very difficult and VERY expensive. It was originally around $9 a yard - normal retail price for designer fabrics - but I didn't start sewing until 2010 and when I saw it then I liked it but I didn't know anything about fabric prices and thought that 15-25$ a yard was just WAY too expensive.
Wow, I wish I would have started collecting it then because those yard prices are now FQ prices!! Some people are selling the fabric for $10-15 a fat quarter - no joke - $60 a yard and sometimes even more! I was able to find a lot of REALLY awesome swap partners for over 1/2 of this collection but there were some shameful purchases at ridiculous prices for a few of the prints.

Is it worth all of the money I've spent on it (swaps and outright purchases combined)? Probably not - it is just fabric afterall and what quilting fabric is really "worth" $15 a FQ?! HOWEVER it is absolutely one of my favorite lines and I love all the colors together and I will absolutely adore the quilt and whatever else I make out of this line so even if the financial worth is not there - it will still be worth a lot more to me in the end :) We quilters spend so much on getting things quilted, giving away items to family, friends, charities, etc tho so I guess a splurge just for myself can be justified in the grand scheme of things... maybe just a tiny bit.... ;-)

Mr. Lightening Bug got himself some setting triangles and boy does he look cozy in that field of flowers :) I've decided that this will be a pillow cover for my Modern She Made swap partner. Just need to get some fun quilting done on him and the white space around him will have some free motion loops if I can handle it! Wish me luck!

I've worked on little things here and there but honestly haven't been doing much crafting lately. I've just been busy with work, school, being sick, and otherwise not being motivated. Maybe this weekend I'll get motivated and have more to show next week!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!