Yes, I know. Even MORE new fabric...

Yes, I know. I REALLY don't need any more fabric. But (with a whine in my voice) it was so pretty! While we were at Guthrie's Fabrics Saturday for our class, Mom and I had to stop in to the shop and look at the fabric. And pet the fabric. And buy the fabric. Following are the pieces I got. Aren't they lovely?

The fabric above is actually a lovely green. It's hard to get a good picture of it because of the fairy dust sheen.

Ahhh, there's my fabric fix. Now on to owl progress.

I gave my most recent, and most colorful, owl some more bright color with lime green as the first of four layers for his eyes. My, he's looking bright!

To calm him down a little, I added very pale green as the next layer. My photo wouldn't transfer, so I can't show you that step, but here he is with three layers. I thought a pale blue next would continue to help calm down some of the wild colors. I think it helps.

One more layer of black pupils, and this little fellow will be done. I have his neighbor all ready do go. I've chosen very sedate colors for him so that our eyes get a bit of a rest.

I'll probably finish this guy tonight and get started on one of his two neighbors. These are going much faster than I thought they would!

Until later,
Debbi

Fabric Fun!

Remember that fabric shop I wanted to visit in Tyler, TX? Well, here is what I came out with. Three bags full!

A beautiful blue dotted batik! This fabric is bright and fun.

A pale blue batik. I don't often buy light fabrics, so I am making a conscious effort to fill holes in my stash.

This is a very light blue patterned cotton. I do love blue and have a lot of it. I really didn't need more, but this is almost a neutral it's so light.

Not the best picture of this fabric. This is actually much darker and brighter. It does, however, show the variations of colors in this fabric. This is probably my second favorite fabric from this shopping trip.

This dark picture was the only way I could show the pattern on this snow white fabric. I have...um...okay, NO white fabric. I don't buy it. I bought two pieces this time - again, in a conscious effort to fill that hole.

Here is the second white fabric. Again, I shot it without light in order to show the pattern.

Slightly fuzzy picture, but this is a lovely gray batik to go with three other gray batiks I bought a few months ago.

This lovely light yellow is a 50% off clearance sale find. I LOVE it. I'm trying to decide whether to give it to Mom for baby quilts or keep it for my own stash since, once again, I don't have light colored prints. This one is a soft butter color.

A second clearance find. I have always loved plaids. This aqua is quite lovely, so I bought a few yards of it.

This pretty little blue on cream is another fabric I chose to lighten up my stash. Do you think it's a problem that almost all of the light fabrics I have bought have been blue?

Okay, here is a bright that I just had to have. It has butterflies (I collect butterfly fabric) and cute, bright flowers. This is so me!

And a green fabric (not from the same line) that I bought because it matches the green in the fabric above. How fortuitous since I would have bought it anyway just because it is my favorite green!

This was an end-of-bolt find, so I ended the bolt. I do love bright purple. This should make a nice focal fabric sometime in the future.

I could not get the right color for this fabric no matter how many pictures I took. This is actually a dark chocolate rather than a milk chocolate color. This is the only fabric I bought with a project in mind. I'm working on a bargello that needs more browns in this vein.

And, of course, the obligatory stripe. Won't this make a wonderful binding for a fun, bright quilt? I love striped bindings cut on the diagonal.

One of the ladies at the shop was cutting this black and white fabric into fat quarters. I told her to HALT! until I could get a couple yards (okay, four yards!) of it. Don't you just love it? I really love black and white fabrics, and this one is fabulous.

Yet another blue fabric. This one has the stylized flowers that I love so much. The black background in this photo is actually an extremely dark blue.

And here is my favorite fabric of the hunt. It's a bright (well, what did you expect?) batik in lots of colors. *Happy sigh.* I'll have fun with this one some day.



My next post will be about the rose gardens at Tyler, TX. Well, not actually the gardens themselves. You'll just have to check back and see these fabulous photos. You won't believe them! I'll see you then.

Debbi

New material and a surprise from Ladybug...

I'm sitting here in my darkened sunroom, listening to Phil Collins and trying to remember where all of the keys are on my keyboard so that I don't have to turn on a light. I've been preparing lots of photos to show you, but suddenly I hear a noise outside and go to investigate...

Ugh! My thoughts are now completely scattered. I have to tell you about Ladybug before I can get back on track.

As you know we just added a rather eclectic patio outside of our sunroom (Yes, I know it's still dirty. We're in a drought, and I don't want to wash it.). Well, Ladybug firmly believes that we built it just for her comfort.

Bug (I know. You'd think we'd call her Lady for short, but there it is.) has taken over my garden cart for her bedroom. Well, every day since we built the patio, Bug has brought us one and sometimes two "presents" to express her DEEP appreciation for her new quarters. Remember, folks, we live out in the country. Rats and voles are in plentiful supply. We've been thanking her very politely, then throwing the dead bodies into the field. Okay, my husband has been throwing them. You don't think I'm going to touch them do you?

A few minutes ago, I heard Bug crying loudly outside of the door. I thought the  stray cat we saw the other night had come back, so I went outside with some extra food so that Bug wouldn't have to share. Huh, no cat. Just as I was about to turn back to the house, Bug popped out at my feet and meowed at me. Unfortunately, her mouth was full at the time, and she dropped something that scampered under the garden cart. Bug frantically went dashing after it. After some minutes of dashing back and forth, she chased her prey into the corner by the water dish. She pounced and then came trotting proudly back to me. So here's me thinking she learned her lesson and would hold onto her dinner this time. What I didn't understand was that she had originally been crying to get me to come out while her present was still fresh and full of life and energy! For the second time she tried dropping her offering at my feet. This time the darn, scampering thing ran straight for my feet!!! It's after dark...I'm squinting in the light coming from the house to try to see what's happening...you get the picture. My husband didn't hear my scream since he had the TV turned up too loudly to try to drown out my Phil Collins, but I'm quite certain the neighbors wondered if my husband had finally given in to temptation and was murdering me!

You know, I appreciate love, I really do. And I love the fact that my pets want to show how much they love me too, but....aaaauuuuggghhhh!!!! Oh now wait a minute. I can't believe you're thinking that... You want to know what the scampering little creature was, don't you? Did I mention it was after dark?? Bare feet?? Do you really think I stopped to ask it its NAME???

Okay. Deep breath. All right, yes, followed by a deep swig from a margarita to steady my nerves. Now, wasn't I going to tell you something about some new fabrics? Yes, I was! Yes. Fabrics.

After the Dogwwod guild meeting Monday, I talked Mom into going with me to one of my favorite quilt shops, Sager Creek Quilts and Yarnworks (visit them here: http://sagercreekquilts.com/). They had posted pictures of some yummy new fabric they had gotten in, and I just had to check it out. Now those of you who have been following me for a while know that I have not bought my usual loads of fabrics in quite a while (as in, more than a week or two - lol). I caved. Big time. But it was worth it! Just look here:

First, some luscious peach batik.

My dear sister is trying not to vomit, but I LOVE this mustard-colored paisley fabric. AND it was half off! I hate to admit that this is the third time I've bought this fabric. I still haven't used the first two purchases, but it was half off!

Now to the reason for my visit to the store in the first place. I HAD to have this black floral with matching border fabric. Isn't it RICH?

The light fabric on the left is a coordinating fabric from the same line. The other two are some of the fabrics that I bought to go along. And yes, there is aubergine in the black fabric; you just can't see it in the photo.

The rest of the fabrics that I bought to go along. The white looking fabric on the left is actually cream. You can get a better idea of the actual color in the next photo.

All of my coordinating fabrics together. Anyone know a good pattern calling for...one, two, three... eight fabrics and a border?

Four fat quarters I picked up a couple months ago.

I'm so totally in love with this pair! Mom bought the same combo, so we're going to have to come up with a competition. How fun!

Whew! My margarita is gone, and I'm out of pictures. I guess that means it's bed time. Goodnight everyone!

Debbi

I can hear hooting...

And I'm off and flying! Hoot, hoot! I finally got enough of my new fabrics ironed that I could pause and pick out the fabrics for the start of my owl quilt. Ignorant as I am of applique, I thought that the tree would be the first piece that I would be appliqueing, but it isn't. I actually start with the small owl in the tree trunk. You can see him below. Thankfully, his body is one piece, so I still get to start with an easy piece. My biggest challenge has been deciding what color to make him. He will be reverse appliqued behind the tree.

I spent last night finding all of my batik fat quarters and organizing them into a carry bin. I won't show you the batik yardages I also have to choose from; I think I can find enough options here.

After much deliberating, I have the pieces picked out and my freezer paper cuttings ironed on. See my new scissors? I went to Sager Creek and bought my first official pair of applique scissors for cutting out precise fabric pieces. I'm so proud!

Anyway, the hole in the tree is a black batik I found on my recent shop-hop shopping trip. Perfect! I have a slightly oversized hole piece cut out on the left. To the right of my "black hole" is the tan batik for the owl's body. Most of my owls are going to be colorful, but I want this shy little owl to show up in his hidey-hole, so he's going to be pale. I'm hoping that the stamped pattern on the tan fabric will show up looking like feathers (sort of). The curve on the left is the side of the hole and the point at the upper right is his ear.

The orange batik will be his beak. I was stumped on what color to use for the iris portion of his eye (the small black circle ironed onto the black material on the upper right of the photo is for the center of his eye - the pupil). The pattern shows white, but I'm afraid that white would not show up well against the pale tan body. Most owls have yellow or orange eyes, but they also don't show up well against the tan fabric. Finally I opted for a bright green eye to offset his drab feathers. The others owls will have bright feathers and less colorful eyes. That should let me shy little owl stand out!

Finally, more photos of my irises and my jealous kitties.

Sinbad, desperately wanting outside. The sunroom is just fine unless he and I are on opposite sides of the screen!

Callie, feeling the same way.

And more shots of my wild irises. Every wild iris I have is purple. I have bought many flag irises, but few of them have actually thrived in my garden. The few that have are all...wait for it...purple!

I hope you all have a great day. I'm going to go home, take care of my baby chicks (usually my husband's duty, but he's out of town), feed my dogs and kitties, then head to my sewing room. If I can get the last of my fabric ironing done, maybe I can start on a shy little owl...

'Til later,

Debbi

And now for something new and different - well, no, actually it's even MORE fabric!

Even I can't believe how much fabric I still have to show, so I'm going to throw the last pictures on here and get it all over with today. That means that I'll actually have to get back to sewing after today so that I can't keep relying on photos of fabrics to get me by. I'll actually have to start working with them now! Yeah!

I love these three batik fabrics! Look at that luscious piece on the top left. Can't you just see that as borders? I hope I have enough. I can't believe I spent so much money and can still want more! The store had the same pattern in a white color-way, but I love rich colors. Mom bought the lighter version. I did give in and buy some of the light batik on the bottom right though.

Keeping with my aquas theme, here is another aqua background fabric paired with a lovely pink batik. Sigh. Aren't they beautiful? Those swaying flowers on such a delicate pink background make me want to don a tutu and dance. Remember the hippos from Fantasia? : p

Have I mentioned that red is very difficult for me to photograph? This shiny looking piece actually is very rich and vibrant looking. I LOVE it. I'm going to have to make another four more quilts just to use up all of the additional red fabric that I've bought since I made the last two red quilts! : )

I love geometric prints. Squares, plaids, circles, blocks, I don't care - I love them all! This violet-blue is going to be perfect for something some day, I just know it!

Another selection of batik fabrics. These just cried out to me. I have yet to make an entirely pink quilt, but I feel one coming on. Wait a minute, entirely pink? I think not! Look at those lovely blues, greens, and purples in the print fabric. I can do all sorts of things with this fabric! This is one of the pieces that most grabs my attention. That is, when I'm not distracted by the next two fabrics...

 Again, I love motion and activity in a fabric. I could never make an Amish quilt because I just can't do solids. This is a nice lavender background fabric with lots of character.

Since I was a child, I have loved pink with blue and lavender with blue. This is a little of all three. Again a batik just crying out for love!  

Owls anyone? The lovely brown batik will be the tree fabric if I decide to do my owl wall hanging in batiks. The assortment of fat quarters on top will become owl wings, heads, and bodies. Below are the lighter, pastel fabrics that will become owl breasts and faces as needed. The black batik will be the hole in the tree for one of the owls to be hiding in.

If I decide to use regular cottons rather than batiks, I will use the lovely pastels in this charm pack to make my owls. While you can's see the fabrics, you can get an idea of the colors. I don't want to remove the squares from the packaging because they'll get scattered and lost. I'll just keep the label wrapper on them until I get ready to use them. You don't get to see the actual fabrics, but I get peace of mind.

So which is it going to be - batik owls or regular cotton owls? Any opinions?

'Til later,

Debbi