anna maria horner

Adding To My Fabric Stash

| terriaw

I haven’t purchased much fabric this year, so I’m excited to share some new treasures I’ve added to my stash over the past few months.

First up, I was so impressed with my local quilt shop when I found out they are carrying Anna Maria Horner‘s new Loulouthi collection. I rarely buy fabrics for the backing before I make a quilt, so I’m happy to have yardage of that brown print on the bottom of this stack to back a future quilt with.

These are the fabrics I bought at Gruber’s Quilt Shop over my quilting retreat weekend. I picked up the Anna Maria print from the Good Folks collection first (one the far right), and then coordinated the rest with it, most of which ended up going into my Maverick Star Wallhanging. I didn’t use that polka dot print in the middle, so it will be a great basic addition to my stash.

I always need more basics in my stash, so I picked out this next stack for fun.

I missed out on the Flea Market Fancy craze so I decided to buy a few of my favorite prints from Denyse Schmidt‘s fabric collection for JoAnn’s. I think they will work well as basics too.

I also bought some silly summer prints to make a couple gift ideas I have in mind.

Finally, I almost forgot that I have a set of the Habitat fabrics by Jay McCarroll.

LOVE this collection, especially the drop cloth print!

I love that Jay’s fabrics don’t follow a collection formula, and I love the color schemes he put together.

That should keep me busy for awhile!

New Bags, Just For Me

| terriaw

In case you’ve been wondering whether I still sew, the answer is yes, I sew a lot. Most of the stuff I’ve been making lately has been fun goodies for my shop.

I have been carrying around this small clutch for the past few months.

I love this little clutch, but it’s actually better for going out at night, not for carrying all my usual purse stuff and a few extras when traveling. So I decided I needed a new purse.

I wanted something a little bigger to fit a sketchbook. It’s an 11-inch square just like these other purses I made for my shop. It has darts in the bottom corners to expand the inside of the purse just enough to hold my purse goodies.

I also wanted something youthful and a little funky, but still functional. In my true style, I always like to add piping for that extra finished touch. This bag has a zipper pocket inside to hold loose items, and an open pocket on the other side to slip in a notebook.

That’s what I came up with – fun, isn’t it?! I really love it.

I have also been wanting to make a messenger bag to carry art supplies when traveling.

I wanted this bag to be big enough to fit a sketchbook and drawing and painting tools. Since I couldn’t find a pattern I was in love with, I made up my own pattern for this bag, which measures 13 inches wide by 11 inches tall.

Once again, I wanted this bag to be youthful and fun, while still being functional. I like having the long natural webbing strap to sling across my shoulder.

I added a little pocket with velcro closure on the inside of the flap to hold my headphones.

This one is just the ticket! I used a print from the Drawing Room home dec collection by Anna Maria Horner for the outside and a print from her Garden Party collection for the lining. I wish all home dec fabric were this soft and lovely to work with! Hmm, wonder if she has plans to do more home dec fabrics.

Speaking of headphones, I made a tiny little pouch to store my headphones in my purse.

To give you perspective, I used a 4-inch zipper on this one! That is small. But it’s a great way to keep my headphones from getting tangled and tossed about in my purse. It is big enough to fit an ID and credit card, so I could also use this as a wallet.

It’s always fun to have new purses!

A Sunny Spectrum

| terriaw

We have finally taken a turn toward Spring around here with the sun shining more regularly, melting our snow and revealing grass.

I found some tulips peaking up too, which the rabbits have been snacking on, so I covered these new shoots with mesh wire to keep those pesky rabbits from doing more damage.

Bring it on, Mother Nature!

Speaking of sunshine, did you know that Anna Maria Horner has a collection of quilting cotton solids? I knew these fabrics came out at the same time her Little Folks collection was released, but I wonder why we haven’t seen any of these solids in any shops. I know Kona Cotton solids and Moda Bella solids are quite popular, so maybe that’s why stores didn’t pick up another range of solids.

I ordered a stack of 12 fat quarters directly from her shop since I couldn’t find it anywhere else. It’s not a big color range, but the colors included are very vibrant and beautiful. I would love to make this or this just for the fun of playing with these fabulous colors.

I have another set of cheerful voile and cotton fabrics in my stash waiting for the right inspiration. These colors are the perfect pick-me-up for a time of year when we are ready to move from winter to spring, craving sunshine and warmer days.

Sunday Stash – Need a New Shelf!

| terriaw

As soon as I saw a couple shops had received an early shipment of Innocent Crush quilting cottons, I placed my initial orders.

Two days later, these lovely fabrics arrived at my doorstep.

I love the youth and whimsy of the story behind the collection, something I always love learning from designers and makers. I love the vibrant color range. And I love the artsy-look of many of the prints because they don’t look so digital or computerized.

The voile, velveteen, and home decor prints aren’t due to be shipped until November. I think I’m going to need a new shelf in my sewing room for this collection!

Flannel in July

| terriaw

I bought this luscious stack of Folksy Flannel recently, and I thought it would be a fun day to share it with you, since it’s supposed to about hot around here. Doesn’t this stack of colors just scream, “Terri”?!

I am planning to make a simple patchwork quilt with these lovely fabrics. As I write this, I realized that I should probably stock up on some yardage for the backing if I can still find this collection in the shops. They are so buttery soft that it’s a must to use them for the back of the quilt.

I read that it’s more important to pre-wash flannel fabrics before using them in a quilting project because they have the potential to shrink more than quilting cotton. I don’t pre-wash my fabrics, but I am going to wash these first before cutting into them. That will have to wait since I’m still working on the piles of laundry from our weekend house guests.

Sunday Stash – Little Folks

| terriaw

I haven’t posted anything for the Sunday Stash show-and-tell in awhile.

I thought it would be fun to share my latest acquisitions.

It seems like these Little Folks voile fabrics are getting harder to find. Many shops are sold out of many prints, so I thought I should stock up on this set of fat quarters. I am thinking about making either simple patchwork quilt of squares pieced together and framed with a solid binding, or maybe I will get brave and make this dress pattern, but in a shorter length. I bet this stack would make another great dresden plate color wheel quilt too! Until then, I am going to enjoy just looking at this beautiful stack of fabrics.

Giant Flower Pincushions

| terriaw

This springy set of cotton fabric has been sitting on my fabric shelf for almost two years when I finally decided to cut into it, even though it has looked so pretty neatly stacked in it’s fat quarter ensemble. Flower pincushions seemed like a great project to use these Springy fabrics!

I used this pattern from this designer featured in the Spring 08 issue of this magazine. What a thrill! The pattern was not as hard as it appears to be, and each one only took about an hour or so to make. Sewing the petals on the first one was difficult, until I figured out how to maneuver the fabric for each individual petal to keep them from puckering or getting caught. Also, I could have used a little more information on how to attach the bottom piece, but I figured out you have to fold under the gathered edge and whipstitch to the bottom of the flower base. No big deal after it came together in my head.

I love how the different petal colors (pink above, yellow below) make each one look unique, just like the real flowers in my gardens.

Aren’t they cheerful and fun?! They would make great gifts, but I don’t think I can part with either of these, just like I couldn’t cut into the fabric. Well, maybe after some time passes, I’ll get over it.

More Pillows

| terriaw

Okay, so a girl can never have enough bags. But she can never have enough pillows either, right?!

I haven’t been very motivated the past couple weeks to do much sewing (gasp!), probably because of our gardening projects, a conference in Chicago for work, and an upcoming vacation to the beach that is many years overdue. So I had a free day to work on some crafty projects, and this is what I came up with.

This pillow looks similar to the pillow I made last month out of the pink icing and azalea dot fabric from the Chocolate Lollipop collection designed by Anna Maria Horner, but this a better pillow form at 16 inches, I used the char brown icing and chartreuse sprinkle fabrics, and I added a ruffle edge, although the ruffle is not gathered. (I had some trouble figuring out how to attach the gathered ruffle to the fabric front, so I ungathered the ruffle and attached it. I have since figured out what I was doing wrong.)

I had another nice pillow form, so I made this one too:

Again, I used a different colorway of the Chocolate Lollipop fabrics in the banana icing and holly cool flower fabrics, and I added a ball fringe to the seams. I so very happy with how the fringe turned out. I was going to be lazy and just made a plain old vanilla (chocolate) pillow cover, but my husband insisted I challenge myself with more difficult sewing projects.

Thanks for the encouragement, Dave. I love the results!