i am not - *not* allowed to go fabric shopping anymore! at least not for a while. :)



i've been sewing and sewing these blooming lotus nine patches for what...a month now? while i was sewing the last set of nine patches (fabrics #7 & #8), i decided that i just wouldn't be satisfied unless this was a *really* useable quilt. in my mind, useable = queen sized. i just wasn't satisfied with the size it was going to come out, a topper-sized 72"x82". so, with that in mind, i took the el to quiltology last friday. i don't make it a habit to stop there, because i usually can't afford to. :) but, being the only fabric store around here that sells designer quilting fabrics, i had no choice. and i'm glad i went.

my quilt starts out with a light blue center that goes into peaches & pinks, then greens, then greys. i really didn't know what i was going to do with it. i thought that maybe denyse schmidt's hope valley greys would work, but, you just don't know until you bring in samples to the shop & match them up, you know? so after looking at about a dozen or so fabrics or so, these ones ended up being the best to continue the grey & getting darker:



and they also ended up being my original idea of denyse schmidt's hope valley. who would've thought?

of course, i had to go there on a friday, which means it's fat quarter friday. all fat quarters are $2.50. i was able to restrain myself and only pick up a few (although i most definitely could have purchased more!):


i especially love the one on the bottom left-hand corner. it's a reprint of an old liberty of london print. (how long will it be before i purchase that fat quarter bundle?!? no! i need to restrain myself.)

and this:


art gallery's naturella.

so these were just a very small portion of my fabric binge over the weekend. i followed this up with a trip to joann's to use my 50% off coupons, then a second trip to another joann's on saturday morning (where i purchased the nicest "children of the world" print (i still need to take photos), and then, today, just now, i bought a relatively large assortment of fabrics from hawthorne threads, which included fat quarter bundles of all three colorways of joel dewberry's modern meadow line. (can't wait to take photos of all of this!) do you see why i have to stop now?

but i have one last fabric purchase to make: amy butler's lotus lacework in grey. this was my #8 fabric in my blooming lotus quilt, and, since i'm making it bigger, i need to purchase more fabric. i cannot find this anywhere, as it's discontinued. i e-mailed sellers on etsy to see if they had any, i even e-mailed people who had made things with it to see if they had any extra that i could purhcase. after all these e-mails, only one person said they had some that they would be willing to sell, and, i think they've now backed out of it because they didn't respond to my follow-up e-mail reply or my follow-up to my follow-up. sigh. at least have the courtesy to say, 'hey, i've changed my mind, i'm not interested in selling it anymore' rather than just ignoring me! at least then i could just be really upset rather than upset & mad! but...there was one more lead that i received from amy butler's fabric sales team (yes, i even e-mailed them too!)... they had referred me to quilthome.com, stating that they had purchased a lot of overstock of amy's old lines. so i called them up, and, lo and behold - they didn't have actual yardage of this lacework in grey, but, they had remnants, strips of fabrics, ranging from like 7-13" wide. *perrrrrfect*, considering that the strips i need to cut are only 4 1/4" wide. i'm going to buy a bunch of these remnants since they are from different dye lots, and may be really off from each other & from the fabric i already have, so, hopefully everything will work out! i've chosen the "remnants" that i would like and am calling to place my order tomorrow morning, first thing! the lady that answered the phone when i called was so nice & helpful. i love quilt home too! :) (now i know why they have those little 'i love quilt home' badges on their website!)

one last thing before i go:



my fresh & funky july quilt block. (one of them, at least.)

the theme of these july blocks are "people & places", so, we were encouraged to add our own little personal touches (ie. make a block of your house). mine is kinda high rise-ish (i tried!), and then i put two cats in the windows that represent my two cats (even though they don't really look like them). and then, what i think is my most clever personalization of the block: the amy butler lotus lacework in grey (i know! this was before i decided that i was going to make my quilt bigger!) sidewalk & concrete, because we don't have much green space here in the south loop. but doesn't it just coordinate beautifully with the rest of the block? love it!

i have another personalization idea for my "person" block...but will reveal that when i sew it up & post it! :)

well, with that, i'm off. heading out to the suburbs tomorrow to have a late father's day lunch with my dad (since i had to work on sunday) - gotta rest up to make the trek out there! :)

sigh. i am in *love*.



michael miller's 'alfabeto italiano collezione'.

i even love it despite the fact that all 26 letters are not there. but how awesome is that - an almost complete alphabet, in italian! i *need* to have this. now!

as i was getting ready to spend nearly an entire saturday off sitting in a day-long nclex review class yesterday, there was a blurb on the news about some kind of "national start a diet day" this coming monday (tomorrow). i got really excited, because, a.) i was supposed to start my diet last week and b.) failed miserably at that, thinking i could just start it *this* monday.

so what a great idea. i'm going to start my diet on the "national start a diet day". how exciting!

after class today, i stopped at the borders across the street to go and look at that issue of stitch magazine with the really, really awesome petal clutch on the front, but instead of buying that, i ended up buying this:



i figured that this would be a more solid investment, considering that i was going start my diet tomorrow. it's actually a really good tool (you know, if i were to use it) because it is truly multi-purpose!

so, when i got home tonight, i was really, really excited to google this "national start a diet today". but, when i googled it, nothing came up. it was a *ploy*! a *ploy* to get me to start dieting! nonetheless, i plan on making my first entry in my journal tomorrow. we'll see how that goes...

so this is why i should never - *never!* - be allowed to leave the house & go to the fabric store. i finally(!) received my so buzzy quilt bee fabrics on wednesday - you should have seen me waiting for this little package to arrive - i was like a dog wagging its tail waiting for the owners to come home! apparently, there was a little zip code snafu that the post office had to straighten out - and that added another week to the delivery time. but i guess i should be happy that they a.) were able to figure it out, and b.) at least got the package to me! but anyways, as soon as i come home from work, i tear open the package & get down to business. (mind you, it's already close to 11:00 pm by this time). so i'm sewing & sewing & cutting away, and then come to find out two things: a.) i'm short one tiny, tiny square (2.5") of white backing fabric for my "smaller" wonky star, and b.) for whatever reason, my 12.5" block is smaller. of course, i don't own any white fabric, and probably could have finalged one of the smaller scrap pieces, but, didn't want to mess with it, since i had no idea what i was doing in the first place.

it's actually a good experience, these quilting bees, because i get to expand my horizons and learn new things - and find out new things as well. like i totally suck at squaring up things, and really need to get myself a square ruler to help me with this.

anyways. the whole point i was trying to make was that, on my little excursion to the fabric store to purchase this:



(so i could finish the wonky star blocks and border them - ie. make them the correct size)

i *also* end up with this:



...about 4 yards of michael miller goodness...i couldn't resist, at 40% off...some intended for another amy butler bag, and the rest towards another crazy eights quilt...

but anyways. all my hard work and cursing at the sewing machine finally resulted in this:



and this:



i had planned for the smaller one to actually be two wonky stars in one block, but then i realized that...it's really hard for me to conceptualize things (i guess more really, figure out how to cut & sew things) without a pattern. and since i don't have a square ruler, *really* hard for me. but i tried, and i think the end result came out pretty okay! but i still want to figure out how to do a 2-in-1 wonky star block... maybe after i get my square ruler!

so, instead of going out of town for the long weekend, nick & i stayed at home. we were able to go and visit some friends, and, on sunday, we went to wolff's flea market at the allstate arena. i wanted to be there by 7 am, but of course, that didn't happen, and we ended up pulling in about 8:30 or so - and the place was absolutely *packed*. i love wolff's. i don't think you really, truly understand this until you've been there. in years past, i've purchased all sorts of things - including 2 sets of vintage pyrex bowls - still in their boxes. but today, my favorite purchase has to be this:



it was only a quarter, and, i just *love* it. it's the cutest thing ever. ever!

so yesterday, memorial day, the weather was crappy, and i decided that i needed to start working on this:



these are fabrics that i bought in a kit, to make this quilt called "blooming lotus". i should add that, this particular kit has been sitting on my kitchen counter...for 3 years. i've been wanting to start & start this quilt for so long, but, just never had the guts to open the box & start cutting. and now i understand why.



these are the fabric strips, before i sewed all the skinny strips together in their respective sets.

all this sewing really made me long for my aurifil thread , which i had just inconveniently run out of, and was forced to use some cotton thread that i had on hand:



i had to wind bobbins three times, just sewing these strips together. i miss my aurifil thread. thankfully, last night i was able to purchase some off of ebay for a discounted price!

anyways. i had to cut these strips into 1.75" pieces, and, i'll be honest, i'm really, really starting to get tired of this quilt now. i've literally cut hundreds of little 3-patch blocks since last night. sigh, i guess that's what i get - i'm so used to doing these quick little projects, and end up wanting to finish this one very quickly also. but i've learned that this is just not the case with this one. i did sew up a batch (8, to be exact) of 9-patches this morning, though:




only like 200 more of these little guys to go, whoo-hoo! i think i'm just going to take it easy on this project, though, maybe sewing up a few of these nine-patches every day. that way, i get my quilting fix in, without neglecting everything else that needs to be done. besides, this definitely is not a one day project! we'll see my thoughts on this quilt once it's completed...