As I’ve mentioned on my podcast, I’m trying to refresh my fabrics a little bit because, frankly, I’m bored of going through the same fabrics time and again to make a new quilt. The ones I’ve owned forever will be refreshed and exciting again when paired with just a small handful of new fabrics.
So, one of the things I did was renew my subscription to Cotton Cuts fabric club. I’d done it once before but was half-hearted about the results. Still, I’d liked it enough to try again. I got my first shipment a couple of weeks ago but just today took the time to fold it and get it on my shelf.
I’m using the “gallery” function on my website to post the pictures as it conserves space. That means that if you’re reading this in a blog aggregator (like Feedly or Bloglovin’) or email you may need to actually view it on the website to see the photos. You should see arrows on either side of the gallery to move forward or back.
In order left to right: Gnomes in Love by Tara Reed for Riley Blake Designs; Bookworm by Lewis and Irene; both blenders from Sun Print Luminance by Alison Glass for Andover Fabrics; Bali Batiks by Hoffman Fabrics; Painted Patchwork by Sue Zipkin for Clothworks
So I’m not a huge fan of novelty fabrics. I had a thought when I resubscribed that maybe I’d be doing more baby and kid quilts which can be fun with novelties, but the two I got in this box aren’t really baby-quilt fodder. I’ll have to think about how to use them.
The two blenders are in colors that don’t really work with the rest of my stash. I’ll have to ponder those as well. (Those are definitely of the ilk of “if you just call it small enough” so I know if worse comes to worse they’ll become 2 1/2” squares or something.)
Love the batik—that definitely works.
And that “painterly” floral? Oh, I’m all about that. Adore it. And the candy was tasty too!
So, given I only loved two out of six, I cancelled the box again. It was a fun experiment but not worth keeping up. If you love modern fabrics, you’d probably love Cotton Cuts. I’m pretty eclectic in my fabric likes so I’m not against modern. But there are definitely color trends I’m just not a fan of.
I recently bought a small handful of new books (yes, I know, I just got rid of a bunch. But these are small and will help me de-stash).
FabricCafe has several books with fast, simple patterns for three-yard quilts. These are quilts that require 1 yard of each of three yards of fabric for the entire quilt, plus backing. It makes a smallish throw quilt—they do have fabric requirements for larger sizes as well. I bought them thinking they’d be a fast way for me to deal with several fabrics in my stash that have large, beautiful prints that don’t work well cut into small pieces. Most of these three-yard quilts have one feature fabric that stays in pretty big pieces. So, seeing this floral in my Cotton Cuts box, I immediately thought of those books.
Thumbing through all of them quickly, I chose a pattern from the book pictured here. However, having only gotten a half yard of that lovely print in the subscription box, I immediately went online to buy another half yard. Sadly, Cotton Cuts no longer had it. I ended up buying a full yard from Hancocks of Paducah because a half yard wasn’t available. I’ll cut the half yard extra into strips or something. I also choose enough for backing from another print in the line that I thought was lovely. It’ll be a nice, spring-y project to work on in February when all is mucky and bleak outside my window.
However, for the other two one-yard cuts, I shopped my stash. I found two perfect candidates for the accent and background (purple is accent, light green is background). This photo makes the background look a little more medium valued than it is—it’s not a pure light but I think it’ll be close enough.
I’ve had that purple butterfly fabric for-freakin’ ever. I think I may have inherited it from my Mom’s stash. The other is newer—seems like it probably came from a subscription box somewhere along the way as I haven’t bought yardage from shops in years. I think it’ll work really nicely for this design, though.
So I’ve set aside this fabric grouping, waiting for the rest to get mailed to me. Then this should be a weekend project to get done. Famous last words, I know.
I have been in the habit of buying half yard cuts of fabrics that just catch my eye, unless I immediately determine it’s going to be a border print, in which case I might buy a couple of yards of it. But I have very few one-yard cuts. I think most of the designs in the three-yard books could be adapted pretty easily to have two coordinating feature fabrics, coordinating accents, and coordinating backgrounds, if I decide I want to make more.
Meanwhile, I’m patting myself on the back for finding a way to immediately use a new book and some new fabric while still using up some stash. Even if I did end up having to buy four yards of fabric to use two out of my stash. But who’s counting?