Floral Vintage Fabric

  I wasn't planning on writing a blog post today.  So this one is going to be a short and sweet, to the point.

I felt like playing in the fabric stash.  You know straightening, sorting and finding hidden treasures.  I bet most of you are surprised to see the purple print.  It's not a color I use often. But this one I love.  

Here's a shot of the selvage.  Peter Pan Fabrics INC.  is vintage fabric, or so the internet says.  My online search didn't yield much information but honestly I didn't dig real deep into the search.   I've had this fabric in my stash for years.  It was part of a huge quilting estate sale I purchased for $200.  For $200 I had one truckload of fabric and notions.  Most I gave away due to there was a lot of novelty prints and things I would never use.  The second truckload was a midarm quilter and frame.  That too I no longer own.  Most of the fabric I kept is now fabric I rarely even see.  It's tucked away in my cabinet of misfits.  Occasionally the thought crosses my mind to sell or donate them.  It's not going to happen!  This is my go to cabinet for making quilts for other people.  Most people I know don't want a quilt made with bright happy fabrics.  So it's nice to have the older fabric stash.  The purple print is being upgraded today and will now be in my "I love it" fabric cabinet.

Until next time...

Hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

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Making Sweet Hearts

Working with the color red feeds my quilting soul.  No other color excites me quite like red.  Do you have a color that sparks your creativity?  Is there one color that will keep you sewing for hours just because you love the color so much?  Mine of course is RED.

Embracing the color red was really hard.  Why?  Well, it all goes back to my childhood.  Some of you might have been programmed with these same ideas.  Red was bad, especially for a proper young lady.  You know...Only "naughty" girls wore red.  Red clothing was set aside for Christmas time only.  And then were these very negative statements

Seeing red

The angry red menace(our monthly thang)

The red light district

The Scarlet(red) Letter

As a child I don't remember having any red clothing(except for Christmas) until I purchased some myself as a teenager.  My mom frowned upon my color choice.  She let me know it was too much.  Seriously?  A baggy red sweater was inappropriate to wear to school or out on a date?  And I knew better than to buy a pair of red high heel pumps.  I had them in every color but red.  Yes back in the day I was quite the girly girl.   The ultimate no-no was RED FINGER NAIL POLISH!  Had I painted my nails red I'm pretty sure I would have been grounded for life.

You should have seen my moms face the first time I exposed my red toenails.  I was in my 30's and she said a few words I'll not repeat here.    I love red toenails but can't stand polish on my fingernails.  In my circle of friends I became the girl with red toes.  My friends change the color they paint their toes and often ask if I ever planned to use any other color on mine.  Nope, I've never paint them anything but red.  For the life of me I can't figure out why.  I like what I like, I guess.  A therapist would delve deep into the why but honestly I don't care to hear what they think about me and the obsession with red.  It makes my little ole heart go pitter-pat.  Good or bad, it's a fact and good enough for me.

Enough about me, lets get back to my cute little red quilt.  This one will be called "Let Me Call You Sweetheart".   (I planted a song seed in your brain, you'll be singing it the rest of the day!)  With this quilt I won't be saving the flippy corner cutoffs.  They will be used in this quilt.

I wish I could find a way to use these tiny little cutoffs for something more than stuffing for a dog bed.  A fiber artist I am not, so stuffing the dog bed is the best option for no waste.  Notice my scrap trash can is also red.

I guess the whole point of this post was to show you my current quilt project and to inspire you to work with the color you love.  Find that one color that makes your heart sing and build YOUR ultimate stash and sewing room(house and decor) around that one color.  So if you are one of those quilters that love Halloween colors you can make any quilt in those colors.  Even this quilt could be a Halloween Love Quilt.  Others may not like your colors but who cares.  They don't have to live with it everyday you do.  

All colors have a positive and negative meaning, so the real problem might just be how an individual looks at them.  The color red gets a bad rap in my youth but as an adult I see it in a more positive light.

Rosy red cheeks

The Ruby Red Slippers

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues(a line from the song Let's Dance, by David Bowie)

There are so many positives about the color red, it's a very energetic color.  The best positive is it also is know to be the color of LOVE.  Now how could that be bad.

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

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Scraps Come in All Shapes and Sizes

Just when you think you finally have a good grasp, handle or plan for the UFO's and scrap fabrics, this happens.  You discover a box of forgotten scraps.

This is my applique scraps and tool kit.  The good thing is it's pretty well organized and small.  Let's dig in here and see if I can come up with a plan to use up some of scrap pieces.

Amazing how much stuff can fit in one little box.  There's things in here that to be honest, I don't know why I have them.  For instance the store bought embroidered applique.  I don't think I bought them or would ever use them but I also don't have the heart to get rid of them because they are kind of cute.

On the hand I feel like the leftover applique pieces I can work into quilts.  Look at the bag of bias strips!  While digging through this box I realize I could start making plans to use them up and actually make some things with them. But I guarantee you the box of applique will keep growing as I work to use the contents.  

These look promising. Just add a few of the scrappy leaves and some bias strips and BAM I'll have a cute little spring wall hanging.

And these....could be little flowers for the wall hanging.  Oh yes! I have a vision for a smaller lap quilt.  It would use up most of the leaves and the brighter colored applique pieces in this box.  I could use the scrap bias strips to make a vine border, add the leaves and flower applique to the vine.....

So I put it all back in the box and took the dog for a walk.   By the time we return from our walk I had come to my senses.  I'm not dealing with those scraps right now.  Stay the course Lea Anne!  Go square up some HST's!  If you're new here and wondering "What HST's?".  Click here.

Thanks for stopping by my little spot in Podunk.

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

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True Grips, Truly Grip

The HST trimming is progressing along slowly.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about you can read all about my HUGE stash of bonus HST's by clicking this link  https://podunkpretties.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-joy-of-hsts-stitch-clip-and-flip-fun.html

The slow progress is partly due to this Quilt In a Day ruler.  It works great but man is it slick.

Most of my rulers have been plastered with Nexcare transparent tape.  The tape has a texture that grips fabric pretty good.  This 6.5" ruler is my most used ruler and has many pieces of the grippy tape.  Seems like overkill but it works.  Maybe it works so well on the 6.5" ruler because it's small and easier to control the slipping.

The Nexcare tape has a minimal effect on the highly polished Quilt In a Day ruler. 

It's time to try something different in order to speed up the trimming process.  These True Grips are made by The Grace Quilting Company.  I won them back in early December during their 12 Days of Christmas online event.  Believe it or not, I just received my winnings Jan.15.  That's a story for another day.

To say the least I was skeptical about the True Grips.  I've used similar products in the past and they were not so great.  That's how Nexcare tape became my go-to for slippery rulers.  When I opened these my first thought was "Wow!  that's a huge instruction sheet for stickers."  But this is an advertisement pamphlet.  No instructions included anywhere on the packaging but I think that's because we all know how stickers work, or at least I hope we do.

Right out of the package they feel different than the ones I used years ago.  The True Grips are thicker and feel a little like rubber.

Two little grips were strategically placed on the ruler, right about where I place my hand when using the ruler.

Success!  Not one little slip during the trimming of about 20 HST's!  Amazing! 

 Since these were free to me I had to check out the price.  Between $5 to $7 for 30 grips per package, 15 large and 15 small.  I used 2 large for this ruler.  The small grips are the center that is cut out of the larger circle.

I placed the remaining grips back on the pamphlet to keep them like new until I need them.  Funny how they stick to the glossy paper but they aren't sticky to the touch.  My guess would be these are made from the same stuff as static stickers, but that's purely a guess.  All that matters to me is they work like a charm and I will never use Nexcare on my rulers again.  And that's big deal because I can be a little thrifty/cheap.  These are worth every penny!

Thanks for stopping by my little spot in Podunk!

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

Edited to add this to the Nifty Notions Tab.

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