Tips on Tuesdays! -> Fabrics

Welcome to Tips on Tuesdays.  This is a sharing post, so leave your ideas in the comments section.  Links welcome!  The red button on the side will connect you to ALL Tips on Tuesday posts FYI.  The theme I'm revisiting this week is Fabric.

One problem I seem to have on a regular basis is purchasing a piece of fabric without any coordinated... just because I like it.  Then once it's home, I cannot make a decision as to what it looks good with from my existing stash.  Now, I could get around that by never buying single fabrics again,  but that isn't going to happen.  I'm a sucker for prints that make me happy, which often puts practicality out the window.

Then one day, while removing selvedges (the thick side edges of fabric) I had a eureeka moment.  Those strips contain every color used in the fabric itself.  So what an easy way to match colors!

This birdie fabric is a prime example.  I keep trying to match it with red or green or light blue... boring.  I had never thought of color #12 or #10 or #6 or #3.  Looking at those dots gives me lots of options.  I have learned to take the selvedge dot strip over to my stash and match from there.  It seem really easy to notice the right coordinates this way.  Works like magic!

I'm often surprised how many colors are in each fabric quarter I buy.  If you still can't find a match, then take the selvedge to the fabric store.  It really simplifies the process.  Consider solids too.

Tip #2.  Have you ever done this:  can't find the right shade, so you use a fabric upside down?  I've done it blues, and also yellows before.

Elle in Manitoba recently made a terrific blogpost on color.  

CLICK HERE

 (Thanks Elle!)

I need advice.  One fabric issue I have is with VERY large prints.  I bought a bunch of this red & white print, and WOW it's large in comparison to my other fabrics.  I think it's AnnaMaria Horner.

I just love these colors together, and was planning a picnic blanket.  I think my polka dots are all gone now.  It became binding on the St. Nikolaus quilt.  How do you use small, medium, and large print fabrics?  DO you mix them?  Do you only buy from one line, or do you stick with charm & jelly roll sets?  Do you have the kind of stash where everything goes together?

Please share!  I would love to hear your thought on this.
Thank you!!
~Monika

Snooping in Other Blogs : )

I'm in that lull - a minimally creative space after a hugely creative push.  I'm still a little exhausted and really unsure of what to make next.  I have an art commission and a quilt commission coming into my life soon which I really look forward too!  Both a such endearing projects.  While I wait, I found the following lovely post from Michelle at Periwinkle Quilting and Beyond.  (Click on her name.)  She's the owner of a local quilt shop and she posted her own dyed wool fabric swatches!  wow.

Go look at the pretty colors!!  I wonder what wool fabric feels like?  Is it itchy?

And then I saw a recent post from Lee at Freshly Pieced. (Hi Lee!)  She blogged about Spoonflower dot com.  I had never heard of it.  Have you?  Get this: You can actually design your own fabric, upload it, and buy it by the swatch or the meter (yard?).  They will mail it to you.  Isn't that amazing!?  I have to try it.  I fooled around with some of my photos.  These are "fat quarter fabric" samples.

That was the photo Wendy S. took of me quilting on the beach this fall.   You can shrink or enlarge the patterns.  :)  And look at this...

  It's my photo of the window grates of the Delta Bessborough Hotel, our "castle on the river".  And I did this too...

That is my photo of trains out in the country with their reflection in the flooded ditches this summer.  We had a lot of rain.  I think this would make a good illustration on fabric for a child's quilt.  Look at this next one!  I used a mirror image of apple blossom with a stormy sky looming in the distance.

It reminds me of kaleidoscope quilts I've seen on TV.  And here's one more of a prairie field & some dandelions, also kaleidoscope style...

It's all a bit garish for me, but aren't they darn interesting!?  Try is out for yourself.  I can't wait to upload my children's artwork.  That would make a real keeper of a quilt.  

Enjoy playing with that!  : )  Hey Michelle F. - maybe we could quilt your paintings!!  hmmmmm.

~Monika

Blue Sky Ahead!

Oh this is working out marvelously so far (knock on wood).  My Janome is giving me a serious headache.  I don't like the way the tech set the tensions, so I fiddled with them myself.  I can't believe I have to take it back again.  It's like cooking with a broken stir-spoon.  But here's what I have so far.  First, the painted sky - watered down acrylics on cotton.

I air dried it and then pressed it with a hot steamy iron.

So far so good.  Then I placed it on the buckrum canvas and stitched it horizontally through the blues, with blue thread.  

It still lacked some "pretty", so I covered the whole sky with sheer ribbon.  NICE!  So that was 505'd in place and then stitched around the edges.  

Looks good hey?

Now for the horizon!  Can't wait.  I just need to remember to practice before every step on a scrap piece to make sure this machine is set right.  Yikes.  I'll take the 7700 in later when this one is done.  I can't handle the withdrawal.  ; )  Anyone have a good back up machine for me to buy?  

~Monika

happy & relieved to be making a landscape again!!

Quilts in Progress - 2 on the go

Yesterday had me quilting the 'Black and White and Red All Over' babyblanket.  I like it!  I chose straight lines at a variety of widths apart.  

I like that it gives a modern sleek look to a very flowery busy quilt top.  I like the design contrast.  Meandering free motion quilting would have just pushed the business of it over the top.

My next move was to put all the blocks of my Courthouse Country quilt top together... only to realize that I don't have enough.  Furthermore, I ran out the fabric I needed to make more.  Typical.  So I drove all the way across town to get these coordinates.  The fabric store closest to me had shipped them all over there. 

Aren't they great!?  Of course, I bought more than I needed.  I only ran out of the first yellow floral print.  They were all on sale for 4-6 dollars a meter!  I couldn't resist.  I'm quite sure I'm going to take them all and make a big flying geese quilt.  

~Monika

off to finish what she started...

Saturday at Sew & Home, Saskatoon

Just a reminder!
 

Sew and Home has their annual Open House on Saturday from 1 pm until 3 pm.  There will be presentations and "meet the teacher" opportunities.  It's also registration day for their fall sewing classes.  They are offering sewing classes for all levels, bra classes, quilt classes, and even children's classes.  Here's mine - the poster for the Postcard Workshop:

If that was too small to read, click on it and will POOF larger right before your eyes! ; )  Hope to see you there!

~Monika