Archive / Fabrics

Fabric Stash Report #6

Last week, I had a finger-clicking good time and bought new fabrics which I will share later.

The highlight of a crazy work week was a visit by a long-time with her super duper cute baby boy. She came over to pick out fabrics for Baby L’s new quilt and we end up ripping into my still-un-packed-bags from my Japan trip. It was great fun and we ended up choosing fabrics for 2 blankies and 1 quilt! FUN!

Week 6: 10 May – 16 May

In: 0 yds (wait till week 7…)

Out: 4 yds (baby blankies!)

This is AnPan Man (Bread Man), a Japanese comic character that we all grew up with. I grabbed this 1m cut from Yuzawaya in Japan, and didn’t get a chance to pick out more Anpan character fabrics. Darn it! The fabric is cotton/linen blend for the top and cotton muslin for the backing.

It is super light and soft, so we decided to just add binding on this piece of pre-quilted fabric. LOVELY. I didn’t want to sew the binding entirely by machine, and chose to attach it by machine, then sew it down by hand for the ‘invisible’ look. Great chance to use Denyse Schmidt’s KJR stripe fabric in a bias binding! 😀

YTD total:
Purchased: 24.59 yds
Busted: 13.75 yds
net: -10.84 yds

Fabric Stash Report #4 and new String Quilt

On Friday, I was just thinking that I have neither ‘IN’ nor ‘OUT’ to report this week since I have not been sewing much at the machine. Oh soooo boring. But over the weekend, sewing happened!

Fabric IN
Zilch (for now!)

Fabric OUT
3 yards (and more on the way out!)

I’ve seen many beautiful string quilts on Flickr and they look like really good scrap-busting projects to work on. There are essentially 2 methods of creating string quilts – piecing with fabric foundation or paper foundation. Piecing with fabrics sounds like a great way to bust some serious stash too. But I don’t think I like the extra weight, plus I can imagine the amount of seams in the quilt (by the way, I’m aiming for a Queen Sized quilt). So, it is paper piecing for me. For fabric foundation method, click here.

I have a ream of A3 sized, low GSM paper that we used for mapping out projects (day job) ideas and they are perfect for paper foundation piecing. So, I did a test block, following this tutorial from Film in the Fridge. I find it ‘slippery’ to sew with paper and because some of the scrap strips are cut on bias, it was a little challenging trying to set the 1st diagonal straight. This will create problems when I put the blocks together and I would expect the center strips of the blocks to match. So, I modified the instructions a little by marking two lines, 1/2″ from the center diagonal on the paper (my center strip is 1″ wide).

Mock-up block

Back to the drawing pad, I planned the colour way and layout of the quilt.

Afterwards, I pulled out the scrap buckets and started sorting them out by colours. So, most of the scraps are in 6 bags now (and why do I still have the same number of scrap buckets left under the table???). I also cut up some fabrics from yardage to make up for the colours and centre string.

Scrap bag

ooooouuuglies

This also gives me the opportunity to use up some Uglies in my charm packs and FQs that I probably will never use in a non-scrappy project.

Week 4: 26 April – 2 May

In: 0 yds
Out: 3 yds

YTD total:
Purchased: 24.59 yds
Busted: 7.75 yds
net: -16.84 yds

Fabric Stash Report #3

I can’t get over Hope Valley. I love the dusty colours and I love its vintagey-not-too-girly feel. I just had to get my hands on them. No thanks to Fab****atic, I didn’t receive any of the half yard sets, which I paid for, from them. So, I bought the Fat Quarter set from an online store that I have shopped with before.

Fabric IN
Hope Valley FQ set 😀

Fabric OUT
Zilch (although I have prepped some more push pin boards to be covered!)

Week 3: 19 April – 25 April

In: 6 yds
Out: 0 yds

YTD total:
Purchased: 24.59 yds
Busted: 4.75 yds
net: -19.84 yds

Fabric Stash Report #2

What a week! I am most glad LAST week was over – had my wisdom tooth extracted (ouchie!), rushed Benji to see the doc for his worsening sinus infection (had to wait an hour because we didn’t have an appointment) and worst of all, we had to fire our live-in domestic helper because she was smuggling men into her room in our house, even while we were all at home (that incident was complete with the police arriving at our home in the middle of the night). I’m glad it is over now.

tapes are so fun! esp. when they retract at high speed.

{pull out & retract} x 100

Well, while the babe was recovering from the infection with the help of Indiana Jones movie-marathon, I managed to cut up some precious (read: in my stash for a while) baby panels, backings and also for a custom crib quilt for a friend’s brand new niece.

Fabric OUT
some for baby panel quilt and for custom Baby R Quilt (crib size)

Fabric IN
ZERO (though I ordered more to be delivered soon!)

Sneaky peek of Quilt Back

This came together very quickly (I love making crib-sized quilts! :D) and I’m loving the colours and look. Blue, pink, plum and brown… yummmm….

Fav. part of the quilting process: Binding

Week 2: 12 April – 18 April

In: 0 yds
Out: 4.5 yds

YTD total:
Purchased: 18.59 yds
Busted: 4.75 yds
net: -13.84 yds

Fabric Stash Report #1

If I get $1 for saying: I’m not going to buy fabrics for the next <insert #> <weeks/month/year>, I’ll probably be able to get myself a new Bernina sewing machine.

It’s silly, but I feel GUILTY each time I checkout a bundle of fabrics at the store. BUT I try to justify the buys for making things for the Etsy shop, for Benji, for the home, etc. Truth is, I should NOT feel bad about fabric shopping since I hardly spend on clothes, fancy restaurants or expensive holidays. Last year, my ‘resolution’ was to start on a NEW project only after I have completed another. That worked pretty alright since I completed a number of old WIPs.

This year, I’m determined to shed the guilt trip, and buy whatever I like and to complete more projects than I ever had. I came across Jaybird’s bog and I’m pretty impressed with the simple way of keeping track of your stash. I’m not going to account for what is ALREADY in the stash, (or what I bought in Japan in Feb!). I will simply start my report in April.

Here goes:

Week 1: 5 April – 12 April

In: 18.59 yds

Out: 0.25 yds

A quick fabric covered push-pin board

YTD total:
Purchased: 18.59 yds
Busted: 0.25 yds
net: -18.34 yds