And now, the fabric....

If you are not a crafter, quilter, fabric-lover, you have my permission to skip over this post. 'Cause it is all about the fabric. The finds. The projects. Color and texture and awesomeness.

If you are a crafter or quilter or fabric lover, enjoy the color parade.

To get you started, here is a look at my stash cabinet "before" --

My stash cabinet, without the current Works in Progress or any new fabric.

And here is the massive pile of stuff after I gathered it all from the various nooks & crannies of luggage space and dumped it on my cutting counter --

all the stuff

And here is my stash cabinet "after," once I'd organized and arranged all of the new fabric and returned the various "works in progress" to their rightful places (remember, I took all my WIP home with me to show Jules & R) --

all filled up.
Works in Progress returned to their shelves,
and all the new fabric sorted, folded, stacked & put away neatly. 

So, what is all of that stuff? Let's have a little show & tell....

Up first, some cat-themed fabric for a quilt that The Artist wants for his bed. He's requested that the center medallion of the quilt feature the full Tri-Force Emblem from the Hyrule Shield from the Legend of Zelda games. Luckily for me, he was able to find a color image of this symbol so I can try and convert the image into a quilt pattern.

He wants the border to be cat fabrics, and he wants a cat face in the center of the back of the quilt, pieced from fabric. As the pieced portions will be made from solids  or tone-on-tones, which I can easily and inexpensively find here, I only bought the cat fabrics for his quilt. I had to keep in mind the colors used in the images he wants (a lot of blue, red and green) and so choose cats that would play nicely with the rest of the quilt. I had to leave behind some adorable beach cats, because the colors were just way off from everything else, and the scale of the print was far too large. Luckily, The Artist is happy with these.

I'm planning a simple 4-patch for the border blocks, alternating the small all-over print with the other two prints. Jules and I did some serious math to figure out how much yardage of each I will need; I was very grateful to have her along, because I usually just pick a random number and buy. I would be devastated to run out of these fabrics half way through the project, so I'm very glad she was along to calculate for me! I've got to learn how to do that.....

Cat Themed Fabric

 Next we have some additional prints I needed for The Writer's quilt. I designed the border to be gray with red, and so I needed a few more grays to manage that as well as a few more solid reds. The diagonal stripe (black with white) that is shown will be the binding fabric, and then the red and the grays will be used in the border. He was thrilled with all the prints I found, which is a relief.

for the Comic Strip Quilt

 I found this wonderful clay tile fabric at the shop in South Dakota, after I relented and bought the Radiant Suns pattern and fabrics. I plan to use this primarily as a vertical (or horizontal, not sure yet) stripe down the back of the Brazil quilt, and will use some as one of the "terra cotta" colored fabrics in the front. I bought enough that I will have some left over for future projects as well; it was just too perfect to pass up.

Clay Roof Tiles, a Michael Miller fabric

I also found a few "just because" pieces. The gold fall leaves (top left) and the purple (also leaves), as well as the assorted red & black florals (bottom/front right) are things I found at the first S. Dakota shop, before we took The Adventurer for ice cream and when I was still saving my fabric budget for Texas. I thought the leaves, in particular, would be sort of reminiscent of the scenery we saw on our trip. If I'd stumbled across these after buying the other stuff, I would probably have passed. I'm not sure what I'll ever do with them, but I think some fall placemats (for the gold), and perhaps some valentines, or Christmas, from the red/black floral. I have a vague plan to make seasonal/holiday placemats for each season, so these will work into that somehow. 

The gray swirl (front/bottom left) is just absolutely gorgeous and I couldn't leave it behind. I forget which shop it came from, but it's scrumptious. The gray with words printed on it, and the wrapped stack of little squares, are both from a line called Mama Said Sew; more on that below. The red solid (which really has small dots) and the gray swirl will likely be used in whatever project I dream up to utilize the Mama Said Sew line. 

all the little extras

 Here is the full contents of the Mama Said Sew "Charm Pack" (set of 40 five-inch squares). On closer inspection, perhaps the large gray with black lettering is not directly from this line, but it coordinates (in color and theme of the words) well regardless. I am not sure yet what I'll do with this little pack, but it was simply too precious. You can just see the large gray piece spread out beneath all the small squares. I would love to get more of this fabric line in larger pieces; the graphics have just the right touch of whimsy to be classy and fun all at the same time.  Now I just have to decide what to do with this....

Mama Said Sew! (by Moda) Charm Pack and coordinating Fat Quarter

 Also in South Dakota, I found these celestial/space/astronaut themed fat quarters. The Artist once upon a time requested "planet fabric" and so I thought I'd pick this up for him. Then I thought maybe I'd use some of it in the Radiant Suns quilt, and then I thought I would use it to make a gift for The Artist rather than just giving him the fabric to use himself. Now I'm not entirely sure, but he & I will sort it out soon.

We visited Johnson Space Center & Space Center Houston while in Texas, and of course were there when we heard Neil Armstrong had passed away, though I bought this fabric before that. I'm glad we had that experience though, as the boys learned a bit about Neil Armstrong, the space program, NASA, etc. and so now this fabric becomes even more meaningful, which is nice.  Especially nice is the second photo -- a gray with all-over print, talking about none other than the first moon walk, space exploration, etc. The perfect thing to pair with this moon landing fabric and make....I don't know what, but I'll think of something appropriate.

moon, stars, planets & astronauts

all about space,
and a gorgeous sunset

 And, just for reminders, the fabrics I bought for the Radiant Sun quilt. The medium-tone blue that is beneath everything else will be the border, then the silvers (top) and dark blues will be for the night sky/moon sections, the bright yellows and bright blues for the daytime/sun sections, and I'll work in the gray/gold (whch has a star print and a luminescense) into some star blocks, somehow. I haven't figured that out exacty, but it will be beautiful when it's done. Just need to get the idea from my head onto paper....

One Giant Leap....

Two states. Three quilt shops. And a whole lot of fabric. What sort of shopping makes you happy?