Quilting......

 In bits of time here and there I'm starting to work on an afghan quilt (a gift) using Kaffe Fawcett fabrics. I bought a 10" package so I could get many prints without buying too much.  As it turns out I may have enough of the 10" squares to either back the quilt or better yet make another. Will be giving this thought as I work on it. Tomorrow jury duty starts so I have no clue if I'll have much time this week or not. One nice thing is I only live a few minutes from the courthouse.

A few days ago I decided to switch my fabric cabinet with the belongings of this one. The other cabinet is in the corner with less than 2 feet between it and my work table, really tough to search for fabrics. What was in this cabinet were things rarely used so I switched them. Marie Kondo would be impressed with how I folded all the fabric the exact same size to stack in the cubbies - I cut a piece of cardboard to aid in that chore. The top big shelf has fabric for clothing, the rest are quilting cottons.  The bottom two right cubbies hold ziplocs with bits and pieces for scrappy quilting......at some point. There is another cabinet cubbie in the entertainment stand in this room that has all beachy fabrics and sheers for clothing. It took forever to fold and organize but I have a feeling of accomplishment for doing so...….my memory is now refreshed with what I have and other than if I need something for a specific project I better not be doing any fabric shopping.  I found some really cute sheep fabrics in my stash, lots of them, which may end up becoming baby quilts to donate locally.

Ice dyeing in progress......

 I hadn't planned on it but decided to ice dye 6 more scarves this morning - they're now 'marinating' or the official term is 'batching' until tomorrow morning.  I can already see some of the scarf above under the melting ice - I think it's going to be a beauty...….

 This one is interesting looking, not sure if that's good or bad.....

…..this one the scarf is toward the top of the picture under the melting ice, it's going to be another beauty, I think.  Then on the bottom part of the picture there's some cotton fabric, that was white on white design, that the ice and dye are dripping over. My quilter neighbor gave me 4 pieces of fabric to try under the ice dyeing.  This one looks beautiful. Two of the others look pretty good but the 4th one is up in the air - it's a pretty big piece of fabric to be bunched up plus it may be a poly blend - it looks strange where the dye is hitting it - who knows, it may wash out to white tomorrow.

I have more scarves to dye, some shawls and even a couple tops, summer tops for me that I never got around to dyeing in the spring so I could wear them this summer...…..

Fun fabrics

Aren't these great coordinating fabrics? They're designs of the artist Charley Harper.  I bought this fabric a while ago at Top Stitch, my Bernina shop, worked on a birthday project using it today - will eventually show what I made.

Just a little fire tidbit - on Saturday while I was at my guild meeting 45 minutes away there was a fire a couple miles from our house. Sam was clueless - he hasn't learned that he's supposed to go out and see where the copters flying overhead are going - he would have seen the smoke plume if he had. Luckily it was jumped on quickly and put out. There have been several other small fires in the region, like this one, not caused by lightening - people need to be more careful. Several fires still burning from the lightening storms last week.....

More fabric added to the stash

Theresa and I met up in Ashland on Wednesday for some fabric shopping and lunch. Both fabric stores in town were having their annual January sales. We also found some great clothing finds at Kixx which we both found out was a favorite clothing store of both of ours.

Some fun fabrics to add to the quilts for the beach cottage. More lights and darks plus a couple more for the first quilt which will be log cabin....which means more fabric to wash and iron before getting started. These are from Quiltz, great fabric store full of quilting fabrics and a number of surface design supplies.

And here are some fun cottons from Fabric of Vision that are planned for this Marcy Tilton Vogue Pattern. Of course I have some other fabrics, indigo patterns, that have been slated to use with this pattern and they're still sitting in a basket waiting to be sewn. Think I'll sew that jacket first to make sure I want to use these more expensive fabrics for the same pattern, if not I've got a couple other really great simple jacket patterns waiting in the wings. I love the way owner, Sandy, folds the fabric cuts - makes me smile.

So the big problem is now how do I fit sewing in my busy schedule in-between all the other fiber arts that I really want/need to do!!!

Beautiful Fabrics

Theresa made a comment in my last post about lack of 'true' fabric stores in our area. Here is one that used to be open here in Grants Pass, OR but has since closed. BUT Textile Connection is online and owns the building the fabric store was/is in so fabric is still there and she will open up by appointment so fabric can be fondled before buying. She's got an incredible selection of fabric from all over the world and the prices are very reasonable. http://textileconnection.net

Sewing.......what I did today.

So, this is what I'm working on now - secret stuff but I can show the machine in action without giving away what I'm up to. I bought this Bernina almost 3 years ago and love it - maybe one of these years I'll replace my inexpensive Brother serger with a new Bernina.......need to sew more often to justify it though. And below is the mess of a fabric cabinet - mess on the floor had been cleaned up some earlier in the day. I just kept pulling leftover fabrics from previous projects out to see what I had to play with. Cabinet desperately needs reorganizing again - each section used to house a color family - now colors are all over the place. In addition to sewing today, this evening I actually got the bulk of the gifts wrapped - hurray! Am dying to get back to weaving but still have some other things to finish up first.