Kona cottons

Some of you may be interested in more information about the Kona cottons. Here is the full list of the colors Eileen identified as historical. The numbers refer to the numbers on the color card from Robert Kaufmann fabrics. I ordered the color card from Hancocks of Paducah. The numbers on their website are different from the numbers below, so you'll need to look at the color name. Right now these fabrics are on sale for $2.25 per half yard. Here is a link directly to the fabrics.

149 Papaya is Chrome Orange (which 21st century quilters now call Cheddar)
1482 School Bus is 1890’s orange
1551 Rich Red is Turkey Red
1480 Chinese Red is 1840-1860 Turkey Red
1390 Wine is 1920’s Turkey Red as well as 1860’s and 70’s Turkey Red
25 Ocean is the closest thing to 19th Century Prussian blue
1192 Lime, 1703 Grass Green, 317 Peridot, and 1451 Avocado are all overdyed greens from the 1850’s through 1900
1865 Celadon, 29 Spring, 1259 Old Green, 1328 Seafoam, 1256 O.D. Green are all 1920’s through 30’s greens
198 Parsley is 1820’s through 30’s green
1185 Kelly, 1166 Hunter Green, 137 Pine are all oil boiled greens of the 1850’s through 1870’s
1361 Spruce, 1217 Mallard are 1870’s through 1880’s greens
1002 Alpine is an 1890's green
1373 Teal Blue is 1850’s green
1151 Garnet is an 1890’s red
1082 Cocoa is Oxblood from 1870’s
1191 Lilac is 1840’s-1900’s

Sunday Stash Report

This week was a "you use some, you buy some" sort of week. I did OK, considering that I didn't sew all week until yesterday. The package I ordered the week before arrived, however, so if I'd not sewn yesterday I would have moved considerably backwards - not the way I want to go!

I finished sewing the fabrics shown in this post into "new fabric" for quilt backs. When finished I wound it onto an empty bolt core, then counted the folds - two folds are approximately one yard. So this bolt of backing - now stored on top of one of the cabinets, used approximately 24 yards. Even though it's not yet made into a quilt I'm calling it busted because it is off the shelves and ready to become quilt backs in no time at all. By the end of the day today I'm hoping the double four patch top will be finished and I'll have constructed a backing for it from this bolt. If you have large pieces of fabric that you don't want to use for anything else, and you don't mind scrappy backs, then I suggest you do this also. Sure clears off the shelves quickly!

Once that was done I shifted the fabric left on that one shelf to other shelves, leaving me an entire empty shelf. I've not seen an empty shelf for a LONG time, so I know I'm using more fabric that I am purchasing - hooray! I was very happy to shift all the fabrics from these two baskets onto the shelf, thus freeing up space on my floor so I could move the string tub out of the closet. These are all the fabrics that Eileen Trestain OK'd for my mid-19th century album quilt, and since that's one of my longterm projects I need to keep them separate. There is more room on that shelf, so I need to take her book in hand to find other reproduction fabrics in my stash that also fit into that era. I feel so much better about the room now - one basket emptied, another basket holding the two quilts that are waiting for binding to be finished, with the string tub in it's proper place at the end of the island with the second basket on top. And I still see empty spaces on my stash shelves that weren't there before!

Good thing, however, as 22 yards of new fabric came at the beginning of the week. Thanks to Kathie I learned that Tara at Sew Unique Creations has many reproduction fabrics at $5 per yard, including an entire line I'd not seen before. There was just nothing to do but order half-yard pieces of the entire collection, plus two yard pieces of a great black, cheddar, and double pink. These will go with me to class on Tuesday - hopefully Eileen will OK all of them for my Civil War Quilt quilts.

So - net stashbusting effort for this week is another two yards used. Net stashbusting efforts for the year - I don't have any numbers, but my shelves and baskets are emptier than they were at the beginning of the year so I'm guessing I may have actually accomplished some stash busting after all. It may be that most of that fabric is hanging in the closet with the 30 flimsies waiting to be quilted - I made a back for every quilt needing to be quilted. I still consider that fabric busted even if the quilt is finished - after all, it's in use, right?

A sewing day!

Seems like I've had very little time to sew this week. Certainly not what I would have liked! I hope to change that today. The catch is trying to figure out what to do. Shall I continue to make Civil War Diaries blocks? Shall I catch up on Dear Jane? Shall I pin the Double Irish Chain on the longarm and finish the quilting? Shall I pin a top I want to hand quilt onto the longarm and get it basted? I'd love to choose "all of the above" but that's probably not the best idea!

I think I'll postpone the decision until I finish this morning's blog reading. By then my daughter will hopefully have called to let me know she's on her way to pick me up for coffee. Maybe when I get back from Starbucks one of the projects will be calling louder than the others.

I did separate all my Civil War Diaries blocks this morning into two piles - one for each book. I also stacked them in the order they appear in the books. Now that I know I'm making both quilts I want to focus on one book at a time, making the blocks in order so I can start stitching them together. So I've stashed the Love Letters blocks and book in a drawer where it will wait his turn. Before I did that, however, I took a picture of each set of blocks. I love how they all look together. I can't remember when I've had so much fun making blocks!

I'm also posting a picture of my early birthday present. Fred has it lucky - he's not had to go shopping for me for years. And I have it lucky too - he's perfectly happy for me to order what I want and call it my present. My birthday isn't until Wednesday so I handed him the boxes when they arrived from Z&S, and he told me to just open them anyway. I think he didn't want to have to wrap them LOL! I know I'm on a fabric diet, but I figure diets can be ignored on birthdays, right? The taller stack is the new "Plantation III" collection from Windham Hill. Eileen says these are all appropriate for the pre-1830's medallion period, and since lights for that period are very hard to find I figured this was a good investment. The darker stack is Jo Morton's "Yorktown" collection. I adore anything she does, so figured it was OK to order this one as I had stuck to my diet and didn't order the collection that came out before this one. How's that for rationalization LOL!

Stash and WISP Report

Our weekly stash report is due to Judy L. on Sundays. I've been remiss up until now because I've not reported at all. Wouldn't you know it - for my first report I must confess to some purchases. I figure they were allowed, however, as they were all for borders. I still have lots and lots of strings to stitch into blocks, as well as 1016 Crumb Chaos blocks to sew into quilt tops. By the time I finished all of last year's charity and orphan quilts my border stash was more or less depleted. So I chose 2 1/2 yards each of six different border fabrics. These patterned solids such as Moda Marbles, Maywood's Shadow Play, and Michael Miller's Krystal make perfect borders for these quilts. Whenever possible I cut my borders on lengthwise grain - they just behave much better that way. I can get the borders for two quilts out of each of these pieces, so I feel they were a worthwhile purchase - especially since they were on sale at 30% off.

As far as stash busting goes I didn't do much last week. I used 1/2 yard to make the bindings on the two Christmas table runners. I'm OK with that however, as my current focus is both May Britt's WISP challenge and the Stashbuster UFO challenge. Until I start making backs for tops to be quilted I'll be using stash for nothing but bindings. And that is OK.

Speaking of May Britt's WISP challenge - I've loaded my third WISP for 2008 onto Gandalf and started the quilting. This is my first orphan train top from last summer, which will be a camping quilt for one of the beds in our tent trailer. I'm quilting it with a pantograph of leaves - I figured that was appropriate for camping. I'm also using Hobbs heirloom wool, which should be perfect no matter what our camping weather. I hope to finish the quilting on this one either tonight or tomorrow morning. It will be so nice to toss the sleeping bags we are currently using. They were expensive down bags when we bought them 36 years ago. Now they are uneven, lumpy old bags with down that has migrated into wads in some areas and left other areas devoid of any warm filling. They should have been tossed years ago, but we needed to replace them with something first.

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Gratitudes:

1. No rain this morning to mar Fred's golf game

2. A new 120" tape measure

3. Leftover pizza for dinner

4. A warm bagel with light strawberry cream cheese

5. Shadow slept in this morning!

Portland Quilt Fest 2007

I am back driving short distances - very carefully. I went to physical therapy on Friday, where I received exercises to do three times a day to prevent frozen shoulder. The therapist told me I didn't have to wear my sling all the time - hooray! I can't reach my right arm up far enough to hold the wheel where I usually do, but I can hold it firmly enough in the 4:00 position that I feel it's safe for me to drive. Painful, but safe for short distances.

I was able to drive myself to the place designated for meeting five North Star Quilters friends so we could head to Quilt Fest in Portland. We had a marvelous time. Dozens of spectacular quilts to view, as well as one of the traveling Hoffman Challenge collections for 2007. Several dozen vendors also - something to excite any quilter alive. I took over 80 pictures so will be able to share many of the amazing quilts during the next few weeks.

Lucky for me, my budget, my will power, and my crowded shelves, most of the vendors had little to interest me. Not to say they didn't have wonderful things to buy - I'm just not into batiks, hand dyes, brights, shabby chic, Asian, African, or any of the beautiful bright prints by the young designers of today. It was fun to see what they had but I wasn't tempted. Only four or five of the booths presented any danger, and I was able to be good in all but two. I bought a Bare Roots pattern in one booth - a neat stitchery of a quilt shop, quilts, and other quilty things.

Then I reached the booth for my favorite quilt shop - Momma Made It. I already knew I was going to spend money there because I'd asked her to reserve a kit for me that I'd seen when my friend Kim and I visited the shop shortly after I hurt my shoulder. This is a design by Lori Smith - one of her Seasonal Quilts collection called Spring Baskets. Sharon has such a marvelous way of putting fabrics together. The other thing I really like about her kits is that they are more a collection of fat quarters and yardage to use in the quilt than an actual kit. No instructions on what fabrics to put where - she leaves that up to the quilter. So there is still lots of room for personal choice and each quilt will look a bit different depending on where the quilter uses each fabric. She'd also just gotten in the Civil War Dressing Gown collection by Judie Rothermel, so of course I had to have a set of those fat quarters.

So that was the extent of my purchases - a collection of fat quarters, a collection of fabrics for a particular quilt, and a pattern. I could have been swayed to purchase so much more if I'd allowed myself to do so, so I was actually pretty happy with myself. We had a marvelous morning - what's better than time spent with quilty friends?

Road trip

My friend Kim and I had a wonderful road trip on Thursday. Getting out of the house was "just what the doctor ordered" as far as I was concerned. We started out with breakfast at a little restaurant where Kim can get her favorite biscuits and country sausage gravy. I had an egg, two link sausages, and three dollar pancakes. Perfectly sized breakfasts found on their "early bird" menu.

Next we headed up I-5. Kim programmed our destination into her GPS unit and demonstrated how it worked. Pretty clever - but then for $400+ dollars it should be! Our first stop was Sisters Quilt Shop in Chehalis WA. A tiny shop that is completely stuffed to the ceiling with fabrics and more. You really need a shopping list before you go in - otherwise the choices are too overwhelming. They had a little Halloween wall hanging displayed in the window that I decided to get because the kit contained already cut pieces - except for the face. Since I can sew a bit but can't cut at all I figured this was something I could do. I've already placed the pieces on my design wall so they are ready to be stitched together. I also got two sizes of the new yoyo makers. I want to do some fabric garlands for our Christmas trees.

Our next stop was our ultimate destination - Carriage Country Quilts in Des Moines, WA. This was a top 10 quilt shop in the Spring 2007 issue of Quilt Sampler. I'd been there once over four years ago during a shop hop and have always wanted to go back. It certainly didn't disappoint. We were there for about an hour, and I found lots of things of interested. I walked out with the following in my shopping bag - a kit for a Halloween wall hanging all done in wool, a couple stitchery patterns, and a kit for the Winter Wonderland BOM stitchery quilt by Crab Apple Hill. I've been wanting to do a quilt combining stitchery and piecing, and since this was done in my favorite red and white setting I decided it was perfect.

Following this spending spree we stopped for lunch at a little place about a block south of the quilt shop. We each had a large crab salad - marvelous! It was piled high with six ounces of fresh Dungeness crab meat - pure heaven for the palette! OK on the diet too. What wasn't OK as far as the diet was concerned was the marvelous garlic cheese toast we had with the salad. Oh well, calories don't count on a quilt shop road trip, right?

On the way home we stopped at our favorite Momma Made It in Longview. Sharon was getting everything ready for her booth at the Portland Quilt Fest that opens this Thursday. We got a preview of some of her new quilts, and both Kim and I reserved a kit that we will pick up at Quilt Fest. I won't tell you more now as I expect to take photos and post about the Fest next weekend.

All in all it was a marvelous day. Yes, I probably spent more than I should have - I certainly didn't need the things I bought. But it was great medicine for me and helped me feel ever so much better. Now if only I'd get some range of motion back in my arm I might be able to sew more than 2" squares again!

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Gratitudes:
1. A road trip planned by a Tangled Thread friend for a house-bound one wing quilter
2. A homemade lunch brought by a Tangled Thread friend
3. Pumpkin flavored coffee creamer is back in the stores
4. I'm all caught up on my blog reading!
5. Good health insurance

I just KNEW it couldn't be all my fault!

This is an oldie but goodie. I'm posting it in case some of you haven't seen it. I wish I could give the author credit but I have no idea who wrote it.

A recent study has indicated that fabric gives off certain Pheromones, that actually hypnotize women (and men ) and cause them to purchase ungodly amounts.

When stored in large quantities in enclosed spaces, the Pheromones (in the fabric) cause memory loss and induce the nesting syndrome (similar to the one squirrels have before the onset of winter, i.e. storing food), therefore perpetuating their species, and not having a population loss due to their kind being cut up into pieces and mixed with others. Sound tests have also revealed that these fabrics emit a very high-pitched sound, heard only by the breed of women (and men) known as "quilters". When played backwards on an LP, the sounds are heard as chants -"buy me, cut me, sew me!" In order to overcome the so-called "feeding frenzy effect" that these fabrics cause, one must wear a face mask when entering a storage facility and use ear plugs to avoid being pulled into their grip. (One must laugh, however, at the sight of customers in a fabric store, with WW2 army gas masks and headphones!) .

Studies have also indicated that aliens have inhabited the earth, helping to spread the effect that these fabrics have on the human population. They are called FABRIC STORE CLERKS. It's also been my experience that these same Pheromones cause a pathological need to secret these fabric purchases away when taken home (or at least blend them into the existing stash), and when asked by a significant other if the fabric is new, the reply is "I've had it for a while".

I think I must have very acute hearing as well as having definite contact with these aliens!

Back from the retreat

I had a fabulous time at the retreat - except for the fact that I started getting sick on Saturday morning and am now home feeling lousy with a nasty cold bug of some kind. I don't even feel like sitting at the computer or sewing so you know how lousy I feel!

In did get a lot accomplished at the retreat - more that I ever imagined I could. Believe it or not I worked on almost everything I took with me.

I made more blocks for my black sashed string quilt and finished that top. I made 25 string blocks with red centers for another Hotel Hope string quilt - that's a good start for that one.

I did some Crumb Chaos blocks so I could demo the process to some of others. I'd never done them before so it was new to me also. They are so much fun, very addicting, and really go together quickly. After I put everything away yesterday I cut up the scraps I'd created at retreat and made a bunch more of them. So now I have a good start on a Crumb Chaos Hotel Hope quilt too.

I almost left my 2006 Jan Patek mystery quilt - "Posies and Points" - at home. It was one of the projects I kept taking out and putting away while I was packing. I'm really glad I took it because I finished all but one of the November appliqué blocks and stitched most of it together. I've not shown a picture of this project for a long time so some of you may not have seen it. I love how it's turning out - I may make this into my bed quilt for camping in our tent trailer. I think I'll big stitch it with Cebelia, using a nice wool batting and a flannel back. I'm hoping I can get the last block appliquéd today - if I can find the energy somewhere.

As far as will power and not buying - well, I failed miserably at that. I decided it was OK if I spent, however, as this was a special time. My boss told me I'd receive a very nice bonus this week when she did my yearly review, so I decided that was really a gift and I could spend some of it how I wanted to. Some of the purchases were legal - four, 3-yard pieces of bright Shadow Play fabric for sashings and borders on scrappy quilts and three, 2 1/2-yard pieces of warm light neutrals for backgrounds on reproduction quilts. My indulgences were a packet of fabrics to make "Reminiscence" by Lori Smith, as well as packets of blue, neutral, pink and brown reproduction fabrics. The picture is of Sharon who owns Momma Made It and the Reminiscence quilt. I also bought one book - Medallion Quilts by Cindy Vermillion Hamilton. None of those were necessities, but they were things I wanted. I figured I deserved a gift after being good for so long!

I'm totally behind on my blog reading - Bloglines says I have 142 updated feeds. As long as I don't fall asleep sitting at the computer I should be able to at least find the energy to read.

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Gratitudes:

1. New fabric to fondle and drool over

2. A new quilt book to read

3. Wonderful quilty friends

4. Quilting retreats

5. My own bed

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Online fabric stores

This is going to be a short post - I'm determined to sew today. For those of you who've made a vow to not buy fabric in 2007 you'd better stop reading now.

I want to mention a few of my favorite online shops. I order online a lot because the quilt shops that carry the kind of fabric I really like are a significant drive away and I can get there only a few times a year.

My most favorite shop of all is Z&S Fabrics. It is run by a mother and daughter team - Carol and Meghan - and their service is phenomenal! Their prices are also some of the best you'll find anywhere for first quality fabric. Z&S stands for Zooks and Sauders, two well known Amish quilt shops in Pennsylvania. Take a look if you aren't familiar with them - you'll be glad you did. Meghan has also started a blog - Meghan's Material World - in which she talks about their experiences running the online store, and her own quilting too. I'm hoping to bring more readers to her blog my mentioning it here.

Two other shops that I like a lot are the Fat Quarter Shop and Homestead Hearth. The first is a great source for fat quarter packs, charm packs, and the new Moda Jelly Rolls. The second has the best kits I know of - they are overly generous with their pieces of fabric and everything labeled perfectly as to what it's for. Both offer outstanding service 99% of the time.

If you are in the mood to shop - or have some Christmas money burning a hole in your pocket - I encourage you to take a look.

Now I'm going to sew!

A wonderful time was had by all

We had a great weekend at the beach with our kids. The weather cooperated beautifully! This large beach house belongs to our daughter-in-law's family. It was built just north of the little town of Long Beach, Washington by her maternal grandfather in 1980. This is the view of the Pacific ocean from the living room, eating area and master bedroom. Their property goes all the way to the beach so they don't have to worry about anyone building in front of them. Unfortunately what looks like a stream on the left side of the picture is the path to the beach, so we didn't get to walk to the beach. That's about the only thing we didn't get to do. The water was so deep it had a riffle like a lake - there has been a LOT of rain in the last three months! We played lots and lots of games - all our families have always been very big on games. Here you see the bunch getting ready to play dominoes. Our daughter and son-in-law are on the left, son and daughter-in-law and Chewbacca the dog in the center and my DH Fred on the right. We also played Boggle, 31, Phase 10 dice, Mille Bournes, Sequence, Whoonu, plus the video game Monkey Bowling. We also played both ping pong and pool. After a dinner last night of pizza we watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Even though we couldn't walk to the beach we still got some exercise. Yesterday morning we three ladies took the dog for a walk into town. We got our coffee for the morning, then Chelsea, Rebecca and Chewie walked to boardwalk while I visited the quilt store. I think I was very good - just one small sack full went home with me, in spite of the fact that they were having a fat quarter sale. Ninety-nine cent fat quarters are very hard to resist, but I bought only 8. I bought 5 yards of cheddar to go with a scrap quilt - maybe the strings - plus a half yard of a civil war fabric that particularly appealed to me. I bought a packet of 6" squares of the new Moda collection called Poetry. That gives me the pleasure of ownership at a very low price, and the pieces are plenty big enough for scrap quilts. Here is a picture of the haul. The round trip was a little over 3 miles, so that was a very nice walk on such a beautiful morning.

I did get one pattern also - a red and white ABC redwork pattern. Remember my collection of red and white fabrics? This might be just the ticket for using some of them. Unfortunately you can't see all the cute embroidery pictures in this scan, but you can see how they all fit in the center of the neat quilt blocks. They are color-book like drawings of things from childhood representing all the letters of the alphabet. This one will be fun to do, as I enjoy simple embroidery very much. But believe it or not, I have no plain white cotton broadcloth in my stash! I'll have to buy some white fabric in order to do this.Better call it quits and get back to catching up on laundry. After all, I have only 2 days to pack for my quilt retreat!

Back to our regularly scheduled program ....

of sharing my quiltmaking.

I'll start with Sunday's purchases. My list said "plaids and stripes for borders and backgrounds" and that was it. I had two quilts in particular that I was buying for, but I'm always on the lookout for good plaids and stripes to add to the stash. As you can see in the picture I found lots of them. I did cave in and get one fat quarter bundle - a collection of old Brannock and Patek jacquard weave fabrics. (Did I spell that correctly? I don't think so!) I'm a sucker for fabrics tied up with ribbon - but it was 50% off so I figured that made it OK, right?

Notice to all you bright color lovers - you're going to think my purchases are UGLY - but I love them!I couldn't get Shadow the dog to move so I just took the picture with him in it. These fabrics were added to the stuff already waiting to be washed, ironed and put into the stash - fabrics that dear hubby gave me for Christmas plus other things I couldn't resist. Discovering Z&S Fabrics online played havoc with my resolution to buy no more "I know I'll need this someday" fabrics. I used to be safe as long as I stayed away from quilt shops - not any more. These days for Christmas and my birthday I just order what I want, hand him the unopened box to him to wrap, and then wait until the special day to see the fabrics in person. He loves it because he doesn't have to shop, and I love it because I can justify getting the fabrics want that way. (I'm SO bad!) So here are two more pictures of "stash additions waiting to be washed".

My current project is finishing my Jan Patek mystery quilt. I have all the blocks done - you can see them waiting to be set together. I like to put finished blocks on a skirt hanger in the closet as it keeps them from getting wrinkled and lost.Currently I'm cutting out all the stashing strips, which are many different lengths and widths because the blocks are many different sizes. Three of the sashing strips need stars appliquéd onto them, which is the last appliqué I need to do for this quilt. These are setting on my big board. I don't know how I ever managed without the big board. My very sweet son-in-law made it for me for Christmas a couple years ago.

I still have lots of sashing strips to cut, but have my little quilt group meeting tonight so will be appliquéing stars instead. Thought you might like to see my makeshift cutting table. It's the closet door sitting on top of two crudely made (by me) wooden risers, which in turn sit on top of a bunch of plastic cubes that I've had for over 30 years. It's tall enough so I don't ever have a backache from cutting, and it's big enough for a big project. I love it!

This is my third post for today - I think that's probably more than enough!

Checking In

Thought I'd better check in to let everyone know I survived Friday. My back sure ached when I got home. This body is too old for 8.5 hours on my feet with just one short break for lunch. Don't' know why I thought it would be slow - it was Friday after all. I worked drive up, and the stream of cars hardly let up all day. I did balance however - whoopee! I'm sure glad I don't do that every day anymore - even though I really enjoyed the chance to talk to members again.

I wrote a post on Friday night but saved it as a draft because blogger was "eating" my pictures again. When I got up on Saturday I discovered it "ate" my post also, because my draft was no longer there. I meant to post again but got wrapped up with reading blogs until I decided I'd better get into the quilt room and get to work.

I went to the Super Bowl sale at my favorite shop yesterday morning and really didn't do badly. Most everything I bought was a "B" - background and borders. I couldn't pass up packs of Moda 6" squares and a few little rolls of fat quarters at half off, but otherwise was very good. It still came to about $130, but that's low for me when I shop there - especially since I've not been there since last August.

I did get the last of the blocks finished for my Jan Patek mystery quilt - now to set it all together. I must check the math on her sashing measurements first, because I've learned the hard way that math isn't her strong point. It helps when all the measurements add up correctly across all areas of the quilt! Hopefully I can get that set together this week - I'll post a picture when I'm done.

And now back to reality - it's really Monday morning and I MUST get ready for work.