I knew I had accumulated a fabric stash for a reason. I am making a bag for a friend to give to his sister, and he really wanted it to be black and white with red after seeing this bag.



I planned to just use the same fabrics, since I couldn't justify buying new fabric when I had plenty on hand. Then I found I had already done just that!



Great, now I have no hope of resisting pretty fabric!

Labels: fabric

Whenever I'm confronted with an overwhelming selection, I usually freeze and can't decide on anything. So you can imagine how I felt when I saw this:





I think this might have been my favorite booth, wonderful little treasures, all arranged by color:




Nifty Thrifty Dry Goods

After all that, I came home with a limited selection of goodies. One of the local quilt shops that was devastated by hurricane Ike washed/ironed all of their flooded fabric and was selling it for $4/yard.



I couldn't resist this colorway of Flutterby to make a throw quilt for our living room. (After the holidays.)



And finally, I had to grab these two fat quarters in honor of our Westie at a booth full of wonderful reproduction prints. The holiday print will be a throw pillow for the couch.



Oh! If you're into cross stitch, check out this website. The site is a little hard to navigate but check here for some great samplers. Their booth was full of stitched samples I was drooling over. Of course the two I picked to take home were out of stock. I'll order them and get to work. (After the holidays.)

Labels: fabric, quilting

My office building is still closed, a reminder that there is much worse damage out there from Ike than my fallen fence. To stay out of the way we haven't ventured too far from home - less than three miles from my house is (was?) the Kemah Boardwalk, and I've heard the wood of the boardwalk is all gone, the ferris wheel is tipped, and sailboats are washed up on the access roads. It is tempting to go see the damage, but how can you be a tourist to the suffering of others?

Instead we fixed our fence, helped our neighbors when needed, got our shutters down, and tried to put our house back in order after frantically moving things upstairs to avoid potential floodwaters. With that work complete, and work still closed, I moved on to putzing.



I finished a project that was abandoned during our evacuation, chose fabric for two new quilt projects, did a few random neglected chores, and cuddled the kitten - who is now named Addie for no particular reason other than we liked it (Pete thought of it because of how easily she is distracted, like she has ADD).



Now that the repair work is done around our house, if work is still closed tomorrow I think I'll go see if I can help, distributing ice and ready meals or just putting together care packages for our friends that are still without power. It just didn't feel right treating this afternoon like a vacation day when so many are still trying to put things back together.

(Edited to add: Last night would have been Night 28 for my no tech nights. I think the events of the weekend earned me a quiet night with a little TV on Monday!)

Labels: 52 nights, fabric, me, wip

This is a momentous occasion. I actually cut up some of my Anna Maria Horner fabric!!



And I only bought it a week or so ago. Usually fabric like this would sit on my shelf as eye candy for a very long time.



For example, also in this picture, is a little bit of Amy Butler fabric I've had pretty much since I started sewing. And I'm actually using it!



Is it strange to be proud of myself for this?

Labels: fabric, wip

With hundreds of upholstery samples?



My in-laws came over on Sunday and my mother-in-law was toting several bags full of these upholstery samples. A coworker picked these up when a local furniture store was going out of business and has had them hanging in her closet for a couple years. Can you imagine? There are some really fun fabrics here (and some that I can't believe ever saw the light of day) and I have a few ideas to make use of them.



My first project was a quick little zipper pouch. I can put my wallet/phone/keys in here to grab when running into the store or out to lunch.





The inside is turquoise with pockets edged in the outer fabric - sorry for the crummy photo!



If you suddenly had hundreds of ~12x12" pieces of fabric, what would you do?

P.S. - I did finish the pink project but since we are currently riding out Tropical Storm Edouard, the light is pretty low for taking pictures!

52 Nights Update - Night 23 - Finished the pouch above, made dinner, and, um, watch Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. *cough* Oh well, I enjoyed myself! And today I get a bonus day - Tropical Storm days are our equivalent to snow days, I guess - no work for me today!

Labels: 52 nights, bags, fabric, sewing

Ever since I had the chance to visit Liberty when I was in London, I have regretted not picking up some of their fantastic fabric. It was so expensive, and though it would have been a fantastic souvenir to actually buy it in the Liberty store, I left empty handed.



Luckily Marisa linked to a great store with a wide selection of Liberty available as affordable fat quarters, so I was able to correct my "mistake."


The lovely turquoise fabric is a recent purchase from here.

I'm so bad about hoarding fabric, not actually using my "nice" fabric, I hope I can actually use these!



In the grand scheme of life it's a small regret to not buy fabric on a business trip, but it still brings me joy to have these gorgeous prints as a reminder of London!

Labels: fabric

On a whim, I dedicated February "No New Supplies" month... It was, for the most part, a success. I had to buy a zipper for the Mommy Bag, and while at JoAnns to get it I grabbed a couple cottons that were on sale. But that was my only slip! No beads, no online fabric orders.

Of course, now that it's March....

I just had to take advantage of Sally's tag sale.




Click to see those adorable pandas better!

And then Jessica posted about some new Repro Depot fabric, and I had to have it but it was lonely in my shopping cart...




Can you believe how precious those clouds are??

Apparently my February restraint was not enough to break my shopping habits... It did force me to use some fabric I was hoarding - I have a really hard time cutting into my favorites - so I might try this again, maybe every other month?

Labels: fabric

The folks over at eQuilter are quite sneaky... All I had to do was answer a few survery questions and I got a coupon! Not a "spend this much, get this much off" coupon, just a straight out "get this much off!" Amy Butler fabric, here I come!



Now, does anyone think I stopped there? Of course, if I had, what a great deal! Yeah right. When have I ever passed up a reason to get fabric?



And now I finally have some of Heather Bailey's gorgeous fabric!

Labels: fabric

On my Friday trip into London, I got off the Underground at Oxford Circus specifically to stop at Liberty of London. And I am so glad I did! First, I just loved the whole store, and if I ever win the lottery I'm skipping Harrod's and buying my new wardrobe at Liberty.



Then I made it to the fabric level!



Everything was displayed so well, and there wasn't a single print I didn't like.



Isn't this a wonderful way to organize small items? Beautiful glass containers with a simple binder clip holding on the label... I may have to adapt this in my craft room! And I loved the button display:



I didn't actually buy anything this time - I suffered a little bit of sticker shock, and couldn't bring myself to shell out that kind of money when my treasured fabric usually just sits on the shelf looking pretty. Maybe next time I won't be able to resist!

Labels: fabric, travel

Despite what my family seemed to think from my emails home, there were things to do in Singapore besides shopping. But there was a lot of shopping! I made it to Arab Street in Little India for some fabric shopping...



Despite being a little overwhelmed at a whole street (plus more, I think) of fabric shops, I was able to control myself and left with only five patterns.

We also went the last night to a 24-hour shopping center the likes of which I've never seen. It's hard to describe. Five floors, huge, you can find anything. Everything I bought was from one small section in the stationery part of the store:


Click to enlarge.

All in all, I got some things I really love without too much damage to my wallet. I consider that a success!

Labels: fabric, travel

Wow, I seem to send so much stuff to Virginia these days!! Here are a couple bracelets I made from a necklace my sister sent my way - the necklace really wasn't her style, but the beads are beautiful!





In non-jewelry news, I am working on a quilt as a wedding gift for a friend... Now, I've never made a quilt before, but I'm not one afraid to try new things! I think I'm at least off to a good start with the fabric I picked...



That's all for now! I did make my favoritest necklace ever last night, but I am missing a single jump ring to be able to finish it, so I'll have to post it later...

Labels: fabric, jewelry

This is my last tote for a while! And I'm not even going to post pictures of it!! Because that's all I've been posting lately. So I'm just going to post the fabric.



The purple is for the stripes and the pockets, and the polka dots line the inside and the straps. It really does match in real life but I can't get it to look right on the computer. I'm filling it with some fun office supplies, to prove to my friend Lauren the just because she's a lawyer she doesn't have to have a bunch of serious stuff on her desk.

After Survivor tonight I think I'm going to fix those pink earrings I tried a while ago - I'm not sure if I mentioned them or not. We'll see!

Labels: bags, fabric

Here is some fabric I got at WalMart of all places. I'm definitely not a fan of WalMart, but they have some good finds sometimes. I also got some storage bins to keep my fabric scraps and yarn, but you don't need to see pictures of that. =) Here's the fabric:



I think I'll offer Jane the red and orange if she doesn't like the green and orange below. Otherwise I'll find something else to use it for!

Labels: fabric

So I got three sets of fabric for some new totes. One will hopefully be the purse that Katy sold for me, and one will be for Katy to give to her aunt-in-law, and the other I just got because I like it.

This is for Jane, I hope - I'm going to check to see if she likes it first:



This is for Katy's aunt, if she approves:



And this is just because I liked it:



Although I like this alternate:



Decisions, decisions!!

Labels: bags, fabric

I found this great fabric store online, GotFabric.com. I ordered a bunch of half yards to use as purse linings. I also got some adorable flannel to make a satin-edged flannel blankie for my cousin's baby. Yep, I'm giving up on the knitting. I'm just burned out after speed-knitting the green baby blanket. I think the flannel one will be appreciated just as much, I hope.

Here is what I ordered:



The gingham and puppy flannel is going to become the blankie. It's so cute that it deserves a close-up:



In an hour or so I'm going to head to the fabric store to get the satin binding for the blankie, try yet again to find 1 1/2" D-rings to make my ribbon belt, and look at fabric for the two totes on the drawing table. And I have something to look forward to in the mail!

Labels: fabric

Peter is on our church council now, and while he was in his meeting last week I decided to pass time by browsing at Hancock fabrics. Usually I don't find too much there, but I needed fabric for my sister's purse and it's a lot closer to church than Hobby Lobby... Well, they have a new manager! Who wants to update the fabric they carry! So they were totally marking down a ton of their quilting fabric. I went a little crazy. Here's half of what I got:



The green and silver fabric has already shown up as my sister's purse, but I have a lot leftover so I'll have to think of something else fun to use it for. All the other fabric in this picture was only $1.25/yard!!



Most of this fabric was on sale too, except for the Hello Kitty and the green polka dots... but I just couldn't resist! Most of these will probably show up as linings for bags, which means they also may end up for sale on eBay or something because I can only use so many bags!! We'll see... First I have to finish that speed-knitting baby blanket!!

Labels: fabric

I stopped at Hancock fabrics on my way home the other day in my search for US9 circular needles for the Big Bad Baby Blanket... Alas, yet another failed stop on my search (I finally found them at Michaels), but the trip was not a complete failure. I did find a lot of upholstery fabric samples for $1 each that can each become a cute handbag:



And this fabric for $1.50 (it's over a yard) that I think I'll make into a summery skirt for with a plain white tshirt or something:




I also picked up some more jewelry supplies and some adorable dragonfly beads. Not sure what I'll do with those yet...

Labels: fabric

Edit: So I can send Mom the link to this website, I'm changing this to a link. Mom, if you don't want to know what you're getting for Christmas, don't click this link!! Katy, you can see what I'm doing for Mom here.



This yarn is for a scarf for ME! I couldn't resist. It's GGH Esprit (the solid) and Crystal Palace Squiggle. It's going to look a little like this. I want to have it done by Thanksgiving, so I can take it to Virginia.

   

Now, some stuff I got for my birthday! Yay!! This is a set of Amy Butler's Ginger Bliss Fabric, 20 fat quarters from the Fat Quarter Shop! I love how it came all tied in a pretty ribbon. I have a couple projects in mind already. I can't wait to get started on those, too! So many projects!!

Labels: fabric