Does fabric keep anyone awake at night?

Some nights it keeps me up. Some nights it wakes me up. I am serious.

The other night I kept having a dream about choosing fabric for a quilt. I couldn’t decide! There are way to many choices. I kept having the same scenario play over and over of trying to choose fabric. Until I woke up, at 4:30am! I couldn’t go back to sleep. It was time to go online window shopping.
I used to get my fix from True Up. I am so sad Kim Kight doesn’t blog anymore. Although I love her line with Cotton and Steel as much as I love her blog so it evens out.
Another way I get my fix is following some new people on Instagram

I am pretty sure I found Alexouq on Instagram after Cotton and Steel re-posted one of her projects. I decided to check out her feed and was impressed and inspired by all of her wonderful paper piecing.

These candy dish pillows (pattern by jaybirdquilts) are just AMAZING!
Instagram Source

DO you see this puzzle of amazingness?
Instagram Source

Another piece of her passacaglia quilt. I can not wait to see this finished!!!
Instagram Source

Amanda of A Crafty Fox 

She also owns a online fabric shop! She posts the most wonderful pictures of fabric! I always love the different combinations she comes up with. Sometimes she matches collections with solids and other times she mashes different collections together!

I love this bag that she created for sewvior!  The mix between the low volume prints and the bold pinks and orange, I just love it!!!!!!!!!!!     Instagram source.

This is a perfect example of one of her amazing fabric mash ups! This includes Denyse Schmidt’s Hadley bundle, Cotton and Steel blank canvas and some of her own custom low volume bundles that she sells in her shop!
Instagram Source

Heather Ross’ Briar Rose and Far Far Away collections mixed with solids!!!
Instagram Source

I have been following Nicole from snip snippets since she became a contestant on Sewivour. She is amazing at quilting and the way she combines fabrics, colours and patterns is soooooo perfect! Everything she posts blows my mind.

I love the simple way this bag is quilted and have I mentioned that purple is my favourite colour!                            Instagram Source

 

Is your mind blown? I mean come on look at this!!!!
Instagram Source

 

This is my favourite thing she has made to date! I love the cool green with the blues!
Instagram Source

Dolla Dolla Bill

Except I have none. Well in Canada they don’t even have dollar bills so hear it would be more like loonie loonie coin. Still I don’t have many of those either… well I have enough but not enough. Not enough for my quilts. My many many quilts that I must buy so they can sit around my house for a few years until I have time to do them! I always do choose the most expensive hobbies or anything. While in school I was choosing fabric for one of my projects and I just had to go and fall in love with the $28/m fabric that was sold at the fancy fabric store, apparently I dont even know myself I should not have let me go in.

Lucky for me my new found obsession or addiction happened right around my birthday. I have some birthday monies burning a little hole in my pocket. I have resisted Sephora’s new nail polish set, even during the VIB 20% off sale. I have resisted buying make-up, getting clothes and Christmas decorations. All so I can order a quilt kit or two or three, if my husband is nice to me.

So like many things that I take on I like to make things as complicated as possible. I can’t just start with a simple quilt. Originally I wanted to make a quilt that looked perfect for a begginer. It also would be inexpensive to do I think it just takes one Jelly Roll (isn’t all this new quilting lingo fun!)

Jelly Roll Jam Quilt 

It’s that quilt cute! I was thinking of using the Sidewalks by October Afternoon fabric and give it to my niece for her birthday. I was just waiting for my birthday to have money to order it.

While I was waiting I was looking and as I was looking I was getting bigger, more complicated, more exciting and more expensive ideas. Now there are four, yes four, quilts I wants to make. The one above and the ones below. Each hard than the one before.

Park Bench by Jaybird Quilts

Peaks & Valleys by Tula Pink

Hex on the Beach by Tula Pink

The last one is insane! Over 1000 hexagrams to sew together… not only sew but HANDSEW!!!!! I think that it might actually work to my advantage. I would be able to just cary a few around with me and do them whenever I have a couple minutes ‘free’ time.

It’s sooooooo hard to decide. Any ideas? Are my choices to advance? I dont want to get discouraged and not do it!

An Addiction…

I have several. They seem to come in waves. It started with sewing, then hoarding fabric, fashion magazines, buying too many sequins, owls, discovering make up videos on YouTube, buying make up, nail polish videos, buying nail polish, finding and reading blogs, Pinterest. And now the most intense of all addictions has hit me… QUILTING.

I don’t know why it has never hit me before. As a person who loves to sew clothing I never thought much of quilting. I mostly thought of the more traditional quilts with dark uninteresting prints. I never ever thought quilting was what it is, which is amazing.

How it all started. I had a newborn who was constantly nursing. I spent hours and hours a day sitting on the couch surfing the internet waiting and waiting for something to entertain me! I may have spent a lot of time on Pinterest. One day my friend pinned a quilt. I thought hey that’s kind of nice maybe I could do that.

Heart Quilt from Pinterest

I went searching for a place we could learn to quilt. I found Spool of Thread. I took one look at their website and had to go. They had these cute little sets from Heidi Boyd that I wanted to get my hands on. I don’t have my own car and my husband was out of town so I made my parents take me there and out for poutine … Mmm poutine. Ok back on track! The store is beautiful, I want to live there, it showed me what quilts could be. They combine all that I love sewing, surface design, fun printed fabric and warmth.

I started scouring Pinterest for quilts,

Plaid Houndstooth by Leslie Lamb

ABC Quilt

Arrow Tail Quilt

Pretty

Swoon Quilt

Lonestar Quilt

I discovered Vancouver has a modern quilt guild, I looked at most of the members blogs (to shy to join yet), I subscribed to Fat Quarter Shop on YouTube and finally I saw this video.

VIDEO

My mind was blown. I became a full on addict. I needed more I spent all of my computer time obsessing over Tula Pink and her fabric. Where could I see them all, how could I get my grubby little hands on them, what would I make with them, how could I make prints as nice as hers, colour ways as beautiful. I could not contain my energy I was FRACKIN OUT. It was like some sort of illegal substance was coursing through my veins. I needed more quilt and I needed them stat!

Does anyone else get like this? No it’s just me? Ok well here is one little worry of mine. I am addicted to quilting but I have never ever quilted. What if I don’t like it. I don’t want to be one of those quilters who just looks at quilts, I guess that would just be a person and not a quilter at all. I must be a quilter!

I will be back with ideas on my first project that will turn this person into a quilter!