special delivery

I was not expecting this package until next week, especially considering the Italian holiday tomorrow, but it came, brightening an otherwise gray day.

I ordered it from Fernandina Fibers on Etsy, and she ships more quickly than anyone else I've ordered from in the US.

This lovely Art Gallery fabric is the last bit I needed for my lovely Art Gallery quilt. In mid-December, I finally came up with the final design in my quilt notebook and, after calculating the amount of fabric I'd need for the piecework, sashing, binding and back, I realized I'd need to order more. (Like the 9 square quilt, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.)

As eager as I am to play with the Art Gallery fabric, it will have to wait. I have promised my five-year-old a quilt, and this fun fabric is for that. He and I have come up with a few designs, but nothing definitive as of yet. Now that the fabric is here, I think it will be easier for us.

I didn't realize I ordered so much of it! I also have some solids arriving any day now, so we will definitely be able to do something really great with all this fabric.

the dangers of online shopping

The fabric I ordered in November arrived last week. 

It was a lot like a surprise because I wasn't sure how much it would actually resemble the little pictures on the website. Ordering fabric online is a little strange that way. It's hard to get an idea of the size of the pattern and how do you know if the your monitor is off and you're seeing the wrong colors?

You don't.

But it all worked out regardless. I love the fabric. I love it so much in fact that it only took a few days for me to begin to lose my self restraint and go back to see what else was available.

First, I promised myself I'd only browse. But I really don't have much of a fabric stash since I just started out with this sewing obsession hobby. Before I knew it, I'd decided on a few more fabrics and was placing another order.

And then another.

And then there was that one last order last night before going to bed. I couldn't help it. I found a Sherbet Pips charm pack on etsy even though they weren't supposed to become available until the spring. It was so whimsical, so sweet. I had to have it. But no, I shouldn't. Then I watched while one of the two packs listed was purchased before my very eyes. That was it. I nabbed the other.

Now that I have more fabric on the way, I have a bunch of new projects to think about! A quilt for my sons and I already know who is getting the lovely red and aqua quilt I'm planning to make out of last night's impulse buy. Oh, I can't wait for all those packages to arrive!

And in the meantime I am not allowed to buy any more fabric.

misgivings

As I slowly (but surely!) piece together the top of my first quilt, I am beginning to think about a border, backing and binding. I have been to a couple local fabric stores to browse, but I haven't seen anything very promising and the prices are so expensive. The cheapest cotton quilting fabrics are at least €18/metre! The ones I favor are more than that, and I don't even care for those all that much.

And then on top of that I am having mixed feelings about my quilt. It's the color scheme, mainly, which is all over the place. (What was I thinking?) I am beginning to toy with the idea of adding a small off-white or tangerine border all around the squares. Or else just around the outside. Maybe that would tie it all together? Or, quite possibly, make it worse. And it would just add to the amount fabric I need ...

In the meantime, I am still waiting for my beautiful fabric to arrive from the US. I ordered it in November and it was supposedly shipped on the 20th. The cost is a small fraction of what I would have paid for anything remotely similar here, but the wait is long.

the blimunda quilt

I've been stalking the Blimunda blog in preparation for my first quilt. If Barbara checks her stats at all she'll be glad for the two countries that divide us.

Following her tutorial, I am planning an easy peasy square block quilt. She has chosen eight seven dot and circle fabrics. And now that I've found my fabric as well, it is getting easier to imagine I'll actually be able to do this.

I had about an hour to spare yesterday evening and so I went to a fabric shop that opened in October. The selection wasn't as big as I had hoped (even the owner mentioned her glee when she entered a fabric store in the US for the first time a few years ago) but I found the four fabrics on top of the pile pictured fairly easily. I also really like the bursts of color in the bottom fabric, but I have mixed feelings about the polka dots on the yellow and green. I bought enough fabric that if I don't end up using those two, I should still have enough.

The shop owner gave me a 20% discount, and still it felt like the fabric was so expensive compared to American prices. If I find it is relatively simple to get the fabric I ordered on Etsy, I think I will just have to learn some patience and go that route from now on.

Barbara does her measurements in inches, but all of my supplies are based on the metric system and let's face it, it is much easier to calculate centimeters than it is inches, so I am sticking to what I know. I will cut nine 14-cm squares for each of my blocks. That should give me 10-cm squares once they are assembled for 30-cm blocks at the end, considering a 1-cm seam, which sounds fairly close to what Barbara has calculated.

I laid everything out on the couch in my office, which is probably where I will end up displaying the quilt unless I give it away, and when I got up this morning, I came in to have a peak and see if I still like the fabrics I chose. And I do! All except that green, which I'm still not so sure about.

So I hid it under the yellow.


My husband has taken the boys to school and it's snowing now, which is a nice excuse to skip my run and stay inside with all my plans for the Blimunda quilt.

decisions, decisions: fabric

And now, onto more serious pursuits: I found a quilt I'd like to make in this book.

But I'm finding it difficult to get my hands on fabric I like here that is priced reasonably. There are lots of very beautiful cottons and linens but they are pretty expensive. Most craft stores stock what they call "American cotton" for quilting, but the pickings are slim if you like bright, cheerful colors and less traditional patterns. If you like dark green, brown and maroon, pastel florals and teddy bears, you're in luck.

Unless I want to spend a fortune on designer fabrics in boutiques, which I don't, at least not for my first foray into quilting, I will either have to make do with what they've got at the local craft shop or drive out to the big (by Italian standards) fabric shop in Rosà, which about an hour away by car, so I have to plan accordingly.

In the meantime, as an experiment, I ordered a set of 16 fat quarters from an Etsy shop based in the US. The fabric is very pretty and reasonably priced compared to what it would cost here, even after shipping costs.

The quilt instructions said I'd need 12 FQs, and I figured I could maybe use the leftover 4 for the back? Or in case I mess up?

Anyway, the fabric should arrive next week and it will be interesting to see how all the pieces look laid out together and what the tax charge is when they deliver it (or summon me to pick it up at the least convenient customs office). I love the fabrics I chose, or at least the way they looked in pictures on my computer screen: lots of light green, some bright tangerine, and a little brown. I won't be using it right away, though.

This is because although the quilt I had in mind is rated easy, I am taking the advice of an expert and starting off with something smaller.

I will be following Barbara's tutorial for making a small quilt on Blimunda quilts. And although I would have loved my first quilt to be in one of her windmill patterns, which I adore, especially the orange and blue in her Etsy shop here, she is doing a simple square quilt that I think I should be able to handle. The top has "only" 135 small squares

Which brings us back to finding fabrics: I need eight! So it looks like I am going to need to organize a trip to that fabric store sometime soon. And decide on colors! And patterns!

This gives me something to think about while I put off working at my real job...