A Shopping We Shall Go

On Labor Day weekend I took advantage and scheduled my first ‘expedition’ to the quilt shops of the area. A co-worker of mine could not stop raving about The Cabbage Rose Quilt shop and since it’s just 30 minutes away, this was my first stop.

I was quite surprised with the location of this place. This quilt shop was featured in American Patchwork and Quilting’s Quilt Sampler and I had certain expectations on it’s layout that really were not met when I found the place. Maybe because I visited on Labor Day the location looked deserted and the street actually looked like an abandoned warehouse should be there. The outside was dirty and the inside dusty but that is where the disappointment ended. The place was packed with fabrics. It had fabrics that you didn’t know you wanted to buy. It also had one of the largest batik selections I have seen in person.

Now I will clarify that statement with the fact that it had a lot of fabrics and there was something for everyone. This is not necessarily a good thing if you are looking for something in particular, but if you are not sure what you are looking for, it’s heaven.

I tend to compare this with an avid reader of Romance novels (like myself) walking into Barnes and Noble looking for a title. The B&N next to my house has soooo many books but their Romance selection is poor, while Borders has a better selection of paperbacks and the Audiobook selection is terrible compared with B&N.

I was looking for some Ivory prints with a more yellowish undertone than grey. Very specific. I was also looking to see if I could enhance my pastels but again with a particular undertone. I took a good sampling of what I had at home and with my sister, Jessica’s help I did good and found myself something to get me going.

Here is what I had at home:

and also:

I picked up these two for the leaves and the border (love the stars on the border Tan):

The Ivories were weeded down from about 6 to these that complement each other:

and then I ran into a line from Buggy Barn (love, love, love their stuff) and a few other ‘pastel like’ colors:

In total the prices were not bad for a quilt shop ( $8.00 – 9.00 / yd) but not as affordable as some shops you can find online. The thing with buying online when you don’t know what you’re looking for is that you cannot really appreciate the colors and with so much out there you can spend HOURS looking at all the shops. But if you do know the line you like (like me and that Buggy Barn line) you can drop by your favorite online store and pick it up and more affordable prices.

Well now I have the fabric in hand but before I even contemplate starting that project I need to fix some pants for Jessica.



She leaves for hurricane alley (Florida/Bahamas) with her friend Michael on a Disney cruise Thursday morning. Hopefully Hurricane Ike has cleared out by then and they can enjoy themselves.

In Remembrance of a Quilt

I recently went to Puerto Rico after 11 years of absence to visit my grandmother. My parents live there but they visit often (once or twice a year) and so I don’t feel the need to visit the island. My grandmother is up there in years and I felt it was time I stopped procrastinating and head on out for a visit before I regretted not going sooner. Now the thing with visiting is that when you visit one person you need to visit them ALL. When you come from a family where each set of grandparents were quite prolific in their breeding, the visiting process can take a VERY long time.

One of the people I visited was my aunt Jeannie. My aunt was more like a sister to me because she was my same age and I spent a lot of time playing Barbie’s with her as I grew up. She was the first person that made me interested in sewing. She would sew her own clothing for her dolls and they looked so awesome I felt the first nudge to pickup a needle and thread. It was only just, that when I started quilting, one of my first completed quilts went to her daughter. Alba is disabled and when just a babe she flew to the states for treatment. I made her a quilt designed by Lynette Jensen from Thimbleberries and took it to her at the hospital.

When I dropped by her house recently, my aunt asked me when I was going to make Alba a new ‘blanket’. I had no clue what she was talking about since I did not recall making her the quilt at all (this is 12 years later). Then my aunt takes me to Alba’s crib and pulls back the sheets to show me the small baby quilt I made so many years ago. It was in tatters. I swear I felt like crying. I never saw something so used and so loved. She had it on the bed for goodness sake!

So obviously I came home with a mission. Time to make Alba a new quilt. At first I wanted to make something simple and fast so I thought I’d just make her a rail fence quilt but that quickly changed to something fast, simple and pretty. So I decided on a pinwheel quilt. Now it’s moved to something simple and pretty. Fast is good too but mostly I want to make her something to grow with her, something big enough to serve her well, and something that is girly.

After looking at ALL my stash of magazines I did find what I was looking for. I found it in American Patchwork and Quilting's Aug 2000 issue.



I have most of the fabric for the piece but I need some Ivory for the background. This gives me the perfect excuse to get to know the local quilt shops and maybe the ones not so local. :)

Secret Pieces

So I started a quilt last summer and as most projects it has fallen into that huge UFO pile.
My layout was simple and promised a quick return on investment (time investment that is).
It was a simple rag quilt that didn't need much quilting because I was using Flannel as the backing.

Here is one of the blocks

Some of the other blocks had some button hole appliqué on them and each block is 17.5 inches yielding a decent full size quilt.

Goal: To finish the piece by Christmas.

New Blog for my crafty things...

I created this blog to test Dre's blog elements but now that it's out there I think I need to put it to good use.
I haven't done many crafty things in the last few years but I have an arsenal of things to share so I guess the Blog can be put to good use.