Tuesday Stack - Wee Wander

I love the whimsy of the Wee Wander collection by Sarah Jane and the Summer Night Lights was the inspiration for this stack.

The stack includes:

Kona Petal

Plaid Lilac by Denyse Schmidt

Kona Cerise

Pretty Potent Primrose by Anna Maria Horner

Posh Paisley Orchid by Michael Miller

Summer Nights Lights by Sarah Jane

Echino Linen Orange

Summer Nights Lights is a double border fabric which means that these images seen below are on both selvedges.

Tuesday Stack - It's All Horseplay

I am a bit of a Heather Ross fan and this week's stack is based around her Horseplay fabric.

From top to bottom:

Pebble Lines Mustard from Melimba and Kokka

Garden Triangles Green by Ellen Luckett Baker

EBKS Tiny Flowers Orange from Yuko Hasegawa (EBKS stands for everything but the kitchen sink)

Horseplay Natural from Heather Ross

Copenhagen Cross Grey from The Copenhagen Print Factory 

EBKS Leaves from Yuko Hasegawa 

Flower Garden Blue from Melimba and Kokka

Garden Square Green by Ellen Luckett Baker

I couldn't help myself I brought some of these home tonight to play with - ssshhh don't tell as I only have a zillion projects on the go.

Tuesday Stack - turning down the volume - low volume fabrics

Choosing colourful and interesting patterned fabrics is great, but for every fabric diva there needs to be a supporting chorus and that is where low volume fabrics come in.  Low volume fabrics are fabrics that read as a light solid or nearly solid in a black and white photo.  They can be tone on tone of black and white or have a little colour on them.  Generally speaking they have a neutral background - white, cream, taupe, grey.  They can be used instead of a plain solid colour and are fantastic for making those bright and colourful fabrics pop in a quilt.

Some of my favourite low volume fabrics are text fabrics - fabrics with writing on them (I have quite a few in store and many get to come home too!).  

This week's Tuesday stack is dedicated to low volume fabrics.

This is just a small selection of what we have in store.

Black and White Maze from Andover

Swim Team Fish by Dinara Mirtalipova

Vintage Happy Sewing Pattern by Lori Holt

Ephemera Text from Camelot

Address Book Vanilla from Moda

Rainbow Dot on Linen by Sevenberry

Fox Field Baby Geo in Shade by Tula Pink

Sphere - Milky Way by Moda

Petite Plume from Cinammon Joe for Camelot

Tipu in Orange from Lotta Jansdotter

Collage Newsprint by Carrie Bloomston

Wildflower Woods Dragonfly from Lynette Anderson

I could have just kept adding and adding to this stack.  Love text, love low volume fabrics.

P.S.  Note to self : must make a special section on-line for low volume fabrics.

Tuesday Stack - The Bright Side

I have the Monty Python song "Always look on the Bright Side of Life" in my head as I am doing this week's Tuesday stack.  As far as life advice it is pretty good.

So this week's stack includes:

Pipi Purple/Gold from Echino

Echino Linen Lime

Insect Aqua also from Echino

Kona Ash - one of my go to solids

Dot Grape from Echino

Garden Cross Teal by Ellen Luckett Baker

Bees Pink/Purple from Chino

Echino Linen Hot Pink

I hope your day is bright.

Tough Decisions - Ally's Kidneys are Failing

We are very fortunate to have a lovely gentle pussycat - Ally - in our family.  She is an SPCA special.  We went to choose a kitten about fifteen years ago and ended up coming home with an adult cat - Ally.  She picked us rather than the other way around.  Of all the cats and kittens she was the only one who wanted to know the people with a 2 and 4 year old.  She was loving and gentle even then.

The vets best guess was that she was between 1 and 2 years old when we adopted her so she is about 16 years old now.  Recently she has been losing weight so we have been going backwards and forwards to the vet with her.  A couple of weeks ago we received the news that her kidneys are failing her.  Renal failure is the number one cause of death in domestic cats.  

She has been put on a special diet of renal cat food and Ipakitine powder.  The vet suggested we bring her back after a week of her new diet so they could do some more blood tests and keep her in for a urine test.  This would allow them to know what stage of renal failure she is in.  There is no cure, so it is all about management.

Ally hates going in the cat cage and to the vet.  She gets so stressed and vomits and poos in the cat cage.  On the way there and on the way home.  Last time she did a massive projectile vomit just as I was parking the car at the top of our driveway.  I tried to let her know she was home but it was too late, vomit was everywhere.

Also she does not like the special renal cat food, I think she thinks we are torturing her through bland and yucky food.  So from now on it is whatever she wants.  As Mr S said, if he found out he was only going to live a little bit longer he would want to eat what he enjoyed.  (Plus he is always slipping her a little bit of fish, chicken or steak, while he is cooking).

Also we have decided not to put her through anymore visits to the vet, she hates it, it is not going to assist much in the long run and we would prefer she lives out the quiet life at home, moving from bed to bed and knee to knee.  When the time comes, the vet can come to her.

So for now every day is special and to be enjoyed.  

A Little ABC Quilt

As I start another one of these quilts I realise I did not even blog about the first one.  This quilt feels like cheating it is so quick to make.  It was one of the quilts I put together over our ANZAC weekend sewing retreat with my quilting buddies.  Adrianne ran an impromptu session on free motion quilting for some of us and got Vicki and I well on our way (I will have to check with Vicki whether I can share one of her photos here in a later post as she is a natural with the free motion quilting).  Me, not so, but I will persevere.  If you look closely you will see where I broke a needle right in the middle of the black vulture (sods law that it would be on the black).

The finished size of the quilt is 65 x 69 cm, so perfect for a stroller, change quilt, or baby capsule.

The fabric is the Alexander Henry's ABC with Me and the border is Very Duck Egg Blue Spot, which  is almost sold out but is still available in the Mini version.  The binding was a stripe I had.  The backing is a co-ordinating Alexander Henry fabric ABC to Z.

Tuesday Stack - from Mr S

This week's Tuesday stack was chosen by Mr S (my lovely husband).  For those who you have not met Mr S, he works in the shop every Saturday and some other days too.  I don't know what I would do without his support and genuine interest in fabrics, sewing and quilting.

In the shop we have a basket of toys for our smaller visitors, who are not always as interested in fabrics (who knew that was possible?) and two toys are definitely up there on the favourites list...

And the stack...

Sphere Milky Way from Moda

Xanadu Blue Boxes from Troy Fabrics

Sphere Dots by Moda

Just My Type Crossgrain by Patty Young for Michael Miller

Fly Aweigh Main Grey from Riley Blake

Just My Type Retro Clover Grey by Patty Young for Michael Miller

Kona Buttercup

Barcelona Tin part of Parson Gray's World Tour Range

And as a collage...