I like fabric, okay?!

So...happy fall, y'all.  So far, it's kicking me square in the butt.  I've been sick a few times already this month, and we're only about a week into fall, plus I've been spending the evenings and weekends helping my folks move.  Let me tell you, there's no better reminder of how out of shape you are than to help people move.  Jesus H, after this weekend, today I am so full of lactic acid it's just plain stupid.  Is it more incentive to lose weight?  Yeah, it is... But dang it, I'm beat, so at night I've been catching up on some truly terrible TV.

I am taking a break from Trailer Park Boys (if you haven't seen it, it's really funny) and I'm on to literal trash TV.  Hoarders is fascinating...how people accumulate so much stuff and let it get so messy and how crazy in denial they get about keeping dead animals in the freezer to "stuff someday." Each one is weirder than the last; it's so bad, I can't look away. But I did look away.  And I came to a terrible realization...I'm not a hoarder if it's only fabric I collect en mass, and it's in one "contained-ish" room, right?  And, it's not a hoard if it's void of any mummified creatures stuck in it...right?  I just really like fabric, okay?!

Up until yesterday, I may or may not have had several knee high stacks of homeless fabric, and a bin and a garbage bag full of more homeless fabric.  Some of it I have bought over the past year or so, but the vast majority of it was a test (that I failed) of my ability to say "no" to fabric.  Mom is downsizing her stash, so when she offers me a bunch of nice fabric for free, who the hell am I to say no??  I CAN'T.  So needless to say, the ol' stash has had a huge growth spurt in the last few months.  No complaints here!  But...storage is a bit of an issue and my sewing room turned into a fabric war zone.

But yesterday I regained some old shelves that were mine once upon a time.  They keep getting passed between my brother and I , and since he didn't need them now, they're mine again and not a moment too late.  My sewing room is "clean" again! ...there's still other stuff I need to organize, but the fabric situation is just about squared away!

Progress!!

WIP Wednesday: Jewels in the Mud

I'm having total writer's block.  I was going to talk about how you can mess around with color on modern patterns to make them appeal to more traditional palettes, and how very traditional patterns can be made more modern by using strange color combinations...and I was going to say something about how those "ugly" muddy colors (to me) are kind of heinous on their own but they can make gorgeous colors glow...but I don't know how to make that all pair up to sound good and how to segway into "hey check out this sample I'm making."  I guess it's just one of those brain fart days! 

So here's what I'm working on now...a traditional pattern...

I am really fond of churn dash blocks (why, I don't know), and I really like this pattern, but those colors.  No, no, no, no, no.  Do not like.  So I decided to tweak the colors, because eff the (quilt) po-lice.  I was processing some batik shipment and I saw a bright pink batik next to a Joel Dewberry stripe that's a funky grey-blue-green, and I loved it. So several fat quarters and some stash diving later...

 ...I was on my way to getting my blocks cut.  Y'all can keep your EQ and your iPhone apps...I'll keep my crayons and (usually, but not this time) graph paper.  I tweaked the coloring and distribution enough that I needed to redo the cutting instructions, so that's why there's this. 

So then I started cutting and I was feeling pretty good about the color combos.  Right now all of the churn dashes are cut, and all but 10 of the shoo flies are cut.

I promise my ironing board cover was clean once upon a time. 

I haven't been this amped about a quilt in a while.  I mean, I have been excited about quilts of course, but I am psyched for this one.  There will be more blocks with the gray-green-bluey-taupe exteriors than the pink-coral exteriors, but I think that's what will keep the eye moving and give it places to rest. 

The top block has the Joel Dewberry stripe I referenced earlier...and the bottom block is definitely more magenta than purple, but that's the price I paid for using the flash I guess.  Three blocks down, 27 to go!

WIP Wednesday: Vaudeville

Holy crap, I worked on something.  This is out of the book Sensational Small Quilts...and while sensational, it's by no means "small." 

The sample in the book was red and cream, but blah, so I did purple and cream/tan to go with a vaudeville themed black and cream print I have for the border (no, I don't have a picture right at the moment).  But I am doing it scrappy style so maybe, just maybe, my purple scraps might shrink some.  And they have.  Woo!

All the blocks are done, and all I need to do is finish assembling the rows.  Three down, three to go!

I have to have it sideways on my design wall, so it really isn't wider than it is long.

Tina keeps trying to lay down on keyboard so I guess I'm done...

THANKS TINA :-)
(yes, her under bite is so bad her tongue sticks out.  Poor sweet girl.)