Fatter and Thinner

Fatter and thinner. My fabric stash and my wallet, respectively. :o)

My friend, Tess, and I took a trip up to Michael Levine's fabric store in the garment district in LA on Saturday. (Then we went to Nickel Diner for lunch, and so that I could stuff myself silly, and then could die a happy woman.)

They had a sale. (Michael Levine's, not Nickel Diner.)

Need I say more? No sales tax (which, in LA, is 9.75%, so that's a good sale!) AND they had some Alexander Henry, some Joel Dewberry, some Michael Miller and some Robert Kaufman on sale for $3.00 a yard. Yes, three dollars. How could I pass that up??

So, without further ado, here's is what came home with me!

Punctuation alphabet panel. There was a bit of a cutting failure with this. I asked the cutter to give me one repeat (about 2/3 of a yard), and she did, however...she cut the "repeat" in the wrong place! Oh, not happy! I can make good of it, though. My plan was to make a little play mat/blanket with it, and maybe get another panel and make beanbags out of each letter so that Mookie and Sprout can match the beanbag with the letter on the blanket. Sooo...I guess I'll be making the beanbags out of the improperly cut panel, and I'll order another panel online and hope to get it right! :o) It's really too cute to not use in a million ways, though, isn't it?! :o)


Sweet Tooth. I got this for some crafts I want to make at Christmas time (haha...maybe Christmas 2011??), but also because I have two girlies and cupcake fabric will always be handy to have around. :o) Plus, it was $3. Nuffsaid.


Kawaii Asian. I just loved the colors. And the design. And each yard was $3. It will live in my stash.


Dill Blossom. It's not really this fuzzy in real life, I just took a bad picture and didn't want to go through the hassle of taking it back out and taking another picture. Sorry. These will go in my stash, and it was only $3/yd, and I love both designs and colors.


London Calling. Which makes me giggle because, well, this doesn't make me think of London at all! It makes me think of Liberty of London prints, and I'm kinda thinking Robert Kaufman was trying to jump on that lucrative bandwagon. I like the color combination and the design, though, so I splurged. $3. Big splurge. :o)


Toyland. In darling pink. Because (a) I have 2 darling pink girls at home, (b) it was $3, and (c) do you see those wee little deerlings? And the wee little squirrels and birdies on the wee little mushrooms? Too cute!


Fancy Hill Farm. Purty, ain't it? This is for a quilt for lovely lady who may or may not still read my blogs. Since I don't know, I'm gonna keep mum till I make it and give it to her. I will say it's something I've wanted to do for a while, and I have a good reason to make one for her, but the fabric selection has gone through a few changes. While I love this fabric, it's not something I would choose for me, and I'm pretty sure the LA MQG would kick me out for being too non-modern, but I know she'll love it and use it, which is the point! :o)


Panache. I just liked this. I even paid full price for it. The colors do not read right in this picture AT ALL! It's just really pretty in real life.


Thea Lime. I love the bigness of the flowers, and I love the white/black/yellow/lime combination. Alexander Henry also does this in pink, which I love almost as much. :o)


Brown Bear, Brown Bear flannel. This is to make a receiving blanket/burp cloth combination for a friend who, darn her, isn't finding out the gender of the baby. But it's bright and happy and I can get an Eric Carle book to go along with the gift.


Yellows. I'm part of a rainbow hexie swap where we all contribute one color of the rainbow (mine is yellow). Good yellows are hard to find! Wanna join us? We've got 3 more slots...let me know if you do, and I'll hook you up with Yolanda.


Boabab flannel. (sigh). I am on a never-ending quest for the backing for my best friend's baby quilt, which I'm really hoping to finish before lil Jack gets married, I'm SO far behind! I've finished the top (hallelujah!) (pictures soon), but now? The back. Sigh. I have hemmed and hawed over the backing for months. I've bought a few different pieces of fabric, and just haven't felt that any of them were right. Then I found this! I bought it thinking the flannel might be a good backing, soft and snuggly, modern and funky, etc. I told the cutter that I would like 1 3/4 yards, and she repeated it back to me. One and three-quarter yards. Yes. I saw her measure at the 3/4 yard point and grab it with her fingers, and I (mistakenly) thought she was going to move it over and measure another yard, so I turned away. That was my mistake.(I should know better because I've had cutting problems there, before. Apparently, I'm the only one, though!) When I got home, I pulled it out, and lo-and-behold, there was only 3/4 of a yard. No yard and. Just 3/4. I can't back a 40x50" quilt with a piece of flannel that is 24x42"!  Grrr...and so I search another day...


Kona Solids for my Urban Circus. A week, or so, ago, I got an email from Sew Fresh Fabrics saying that I won a fat quarter bundle of Laurie Wisbrun's new line called Urban Circus. I was superdy-duperdy excited, of course. So much so that I took time away from other things to design a quilt or two! :o) Needless to say, I was even more excited when the little package came in the mail on Friday and I could pick the solids I needed when I went to Michael Levine's! I used my Kona Color Card to pick 3 solids per quilt for the backing, and I'm going with Peridot, Corn, and Medium Pink for the Spring colorway, and Peridot, Caribbean (heart!) and Chocolate (which is in the picture, but hard to see) for the Earth colorway. Sadly, MLs didn't have the pink or the peridot, so I have to order those online. But isn't it fun and perfect for a baby quilt?


Aaaaannnnnddddd...there you have it. The fatter stash and skinnier wallet. You may now have your life back. Good-bye. :o)