Let's blog about fabric

My cough lingers, but most of everything else that has made me so uncomfortable has fallen away.  Not a moment too soon, either, as I am behind on way-too-many things.  So naturally I spent  a good chunk of my first real feel-good day in the sewing room.  & rounding it out with a Block Lotto-Linky Party post about fabric.

I don't know that I have anything to say about fabric that I have not said before...over & over again.    I am addicted to novelties, the more off-beat the better.  Flamingos on bicycles, mushrooms doing arithmetic.  FYI: I am still looking for more of that hot dogs dressed on barbecue aprons barbecuing hotdogs that I am almost out of, so if anyone happens across some let me know.

Lately I have been on a Thursday Next themed fabric quest.  Clocks & cheese (not, alas in the same print) have been easy.  More difficult is fabric with dodos, Neanderthals but I am optimistic.


People often ask what I do with novelties & the answer is pretty much everything you would do with a not-novelty.  Block patterns of large simple graphic shapes work really well with crazy patterned fabric.  One of my favorites is an old Block Lotto block I have made more than once.  Most recently with saturated pink roses (boring!), but also successfully with simple chickens in head kerchiefs speaking French (good stuff!). 

My novelty addiction started small.  Well, not small, but specific.  I was cruising through a book, The Modern Quilt Workshop & I discovered the Story Quilt.  It is clear that this quilt was probably designed for a child, but I didn't see it that way.  Right away it looked like something I wanted to make & wanted to keep. 

As it happens I have never kept one, but I have made them for all kinds of people, including kids...& mothers (my mother!) & physicists (my husband, my brother).  It is my go-to quilt when a new small-person (they aren't all babies, some of them are adopted internationally) arrives in my circle.  Years ago I posted this picture of one I made for a brand new baby girl; this time next month she will be a big sister.

In those early days, my novelty fabric purchases were limited to what could be viewed in a 3" square, but those early days were brief.  Almost immediately I began to expand the images, which meant expanding them in the quilt.  usually I limit most squares to 3", but I toss a few 9" squares in there for fun. 

& that's all  I've got.  Oh wait-I keep my fabric sorted by themes, mostly:  people, buildings, scenery.  Within some categories I have sub categories.  As in aquatic- animals- mammals.  Most of my fabric is out on open shelves, one shelf deep from the ceiling.  This way I can see it with tripping over it, or I would be able to if I ever put anything away.