Day 326 - The Planning Stage

I remembered today I told Michael I would make one more quilt for the T@B trailer.  It would have to somewhat match the Camping Quilt that I made for him to cover the feather bed in the trailer.  So this evening was the beginning of the planning stage- the thought process.  The quilt will be smaller than the first- more of a one person than a queen size.  These are the quilt books that I looked through tonight.

This is the stack of homespun (evenweave) fabrics that I will be working with.

The thought for the day....

from the sewingroom...

Day 160 - Creative Thinking...Quilt Shops

Spent the morning in St Cloud with the first stop Grubers Quilts.

Saw this little quilt and I wanted to remember it as I think it would be a fun one to try and reproduce.

Here is a great idea for a partial door covering and they used it to hide some shelves-

just torn strips of fabric!

And this quilt was in the foyer to the store.  It is some Michael Miller fabric used with a panel of RV sayings.

I have a little bit of this fabric and I bought the RV sayings today.

Here were my Grubers purchases.

Then on to Crafts Direct and it had begun to rain again.

Found Michael a comfortable spot to sit and went shopping.  Boy that is a huge store and they carry so many things that are not available in the cities.  I did notice that their prices on fabrics had increased and are the same as what they are charging at Grubers.

We ended our St Cloud (Waite Park) trip with a stop at a restaurant that we had never been to before-

Space Alien!  A fun family place full of noise and kids and crazy things hanging on the walls.

Day 100 - Milestone in 365 Days of Crafting...

Spent my morning at church working on mission quilt kits.  Figuring out which ones were done and seeing if we had backing material or not for them.  I didn't get a photo of that but I did work on straightening out several of our cupboards when the quilt work was done.  ( I should have taken before and after photos)  Here is the cupboard:

This one I did clean out the top shelf and bottom. At the very bottom are all of the quilt tops and backings ready to be sewn together.

I cleaned the top shelf in this cupboard which was a mess!

And this section didn't need much of anything done.

When I got home some work had been done on the basement ceiling by Michael and my Dad!

These shots are from opposite ends of the basement!

Day 98 - Planning

Once again the computer will not read my photo card!  This is so frustrating.  I copied and mailed some patterns for some paper soul mate dolls for my craft group next week.  I also made 6 yo yo's tonight.  Late night of work.... will try the photos tomorrow.

Day 65 - Quilt Shops/Planning

It was a fun filled day visiting quilt and fabric shops with my friend Lois.

Met at 8:30 at her home and looked at additional patterns for our jelly roll quilts.

 Then off to Fat Quarter quilt shop.

They were having a Grand Opening and all fabric was 30% off. Found 2 pieces.

Next on to White Bear Lake

where we spent time at Bear Patch Quilting Co.

Look at these fruit and vegetable fabrics- see the cucumber?

Here was a strip quilt display- look at the ruffle around the edge!!

I purchased 2 clearance fabrics here

 and then on to lunch at the Great Moon Buffet (Chinese) and wonderful!

After about 2 hours of eating and talking and eating some more....

on to Mill End Textiles.

This was at least twice as large at the Mill End Textile stores near me.

I found 2 more fabrics for a new project and 2 more Susan Branch fabrics in the In Love With Nature line.  Also one other cool "boy" fabric that I couldn't pass up.

Last stop was a Handcock Fabrics.

Look at the lovely brights in the childrens section!

I bought a piece of the green in the photo and 2 fat quarters (on sale of course)

 that are potka dot designs (for a future quilt).

  Back to Lois' house where we looked at felt, embroidery floss, old dishes and wrapped up.

  I arrived back home at 6:30 pm.  Fun day!

Day - 64 Planning

I am going to 2 quilt shops tomorrow morning with my friend Lois.  I haven't been to one in maybe 7 years and the other only once this last fall.  I am looking at some fabric from my jelly roll that I have to add to and also for another quilt in the works.  Here is what I came up with from my stash tonight.  Also made a list of all of the felt that I need to start projects with.

Day 63 - Planning/Inspiration

There is so much joy in going to a fabric store, finding a designer fabric for only 4.99 a yard, having a coupon along for 40% off and getting that fabric for 2.99 a yard!!!!! Wow! What a rush! It doesn't get any better than this!  I found Susan Branch fabric at Mill End and here are my finds: two coordinates from the In Love With Nature series and the Tea Party fabric I actually got for 2.50 a yard...so much running through my brain now about what kind of quilts to make....

The yellow Tea Party fabric was my new find- the coordinates I have been collecting...

Tonight was an Archivers night and we talked about beaded flowers and I shared a book on making them and discussed  making a curtain out of this antique/thrift store find tablecloth.

Day 56 - Planning

I met over dinner at Panera Bread tonight with my dear quilting friend Lois.  Our planning included some final decision making on what pattern we will use on our Jelly Roll quilts.  We looked at a book of quilts by Kaffe Fassett and were amazed at the colors and patterns that were put together and the awsome affects in the finished quilts.  We studied the pattern we choose and decided that we needed to do some planning on additional fabrics for 3 borders on the front of the quilt.  An outing is planned next weekend to brose 2 quilting shops in the north metro area.

This is a couple of books on jelly roll quilts, Lois' jelly roll and a free online pattern.

Day 5 - Quilt planning

(Now I see that I have entered these from the last to the first so you have to read this bottom to top of the entry! Ahhhh, always something new to learn...)

Then there is the little pile of 100% polyester squares... I do believe that there are enough cotton squares to make a usable size quilt- we will see about the poly squares...

The "pattern" piece was still with the blocks...it is made out of a carefully cut piece of linoleum.

So I separated everything and found that there were quite a few different patterns with some up to about 10 cut in a particular fabric. The small pile on the right is single cuts.

Well, I had this jar of 2" squares given to me by a friend...Decided to see what was in it and if it was usable or time to let go.