Monday, June 7, 2010

Fabric {Glorious Fabric}

Did you all have a fabulous weekend? It was hot as blazes here until Sunday evening. First order of business on saturday was getting the air conditioners in and cleaning the house; you know its been awhile when that feels great. Then I spent the rest of the weekend creating a whirlwind of a crazy huge pile of fabrics in the diningroom (aka sewing room).
I simply dumped every last bit of fabric I own on the floor, carved a path for us to get through and began choosing fabrics for my BIG FUN SUMMER QUILT PROJECT.  Oh yeah. This is gonna be good. Can you feel it? Alot of people seem to have their fabrics organized on open shelving which would be really great: you can see everything at a glance. Mine is tucked away into drawers, both for dust considerations and, yes, this is a diningroom. So the piles are still there and will remain! I came out with a seven squares, all different and I'm just gonna keep goin' till I'm done goin'. My favorite block so far is the funky sawtooth star from Material Obsession. My plan is to simply make a bunch of different blocks so it'll be a Sampler Quilt. 
I really enjoyed doing a freeform block too. Anywho. I took frequent breaks to read The Wrong Mother; a very suspenseful murder mystery (not a cozy read!) and the June/July issue of Quilting Arts (thanks, Megan for the head's up there).

Well, anyway there is a terrific article in QA, Stitching from the Soul by Victoria Gertenbach, and I meander to her blog where she mentions Boro fabric which is little bits of fabric stitched together to make new garments and household items in Japan. Entrancement. Big Time. Off I go on an internet wander through Boro fabric which leads me to this book, Boro: Rags and Tatters from the Far North of Japan and to this YouTube video. Boro is mightily tempting me and I remember what happened with Coco-Chan's Kimono, by Kumiko Sudo. I totally blew it and didn't order quickly enough. Well, in case you are interested, I emailed the publisher and discovered that it is being reprinted and quickly put an "alert me" order in at Amazon. Of course, I've been down this road before with Coco-Chan so am trying not to get my hopes up.

OK, enough. This has been great; I've missed the regular ole' blogging and for some reason, I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz: as if I've been far far away and missed all of you. Thanks for your lovely comments. Note to self: tell you why Sue Pelletier is talking about Johnny Depp in the comments.

8 comments:

Megan Greenholt said...

Liking the freeform block!

Dale Anne Potter said...

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with....
Gwen Marsden's Liberated Quiltmaking has alot of free form block making - its an outrageous price on Amazon because its out of print. She's come out with "II"

Have you seen Jude Hill's blog "Spirit Cloth"
http://www.spiritcloth.typepad.com/

Anonymous said...

Boro: Rags and Tatters is a beautiful book. I got my copy from shop.yoshikowada.com as Amazon uk couldn't get it. You'll love it.

Joanne Huffman said...

I, too, am hearing the siren song of fabric and intend to sew many projects this summer.

Victoria said...

Yes, this book has been on my wish list, as well. Hope you have success getting it! (Hope I do, too!) Thanks so much for the mention... very happy that you enjoyed the article!!

Victoria said...

Oh my... forgot to say... very fun free form blocks!

Anonymous said...

iane, cant wait for your quilt ideas. Been wanting to do a layered patchwork quilt for awhile.Can you please have alot of info on this.
Thank you so glad your back!!!!
Linda

Elizabeth said...

Reading your post, I immediately thought of Jude Hill's Blog Spirit Cloth- I think that i mentioned it to you at Art and soul- you must go to her blog and see it- she is wonderful and you will love her and her work!!! I ahve been doing lots of hand stitch work and journaling since Hampton and loving it!! Love your blocks! Happy stitching!!!
Wisht that you would send that "desire to clean" bug down my way.............