I had a full docket planned for the day: meetings this morning, cleaning my carrel this afternoon, dropping off items at the copying center to avoid another unfortunate copying situation. Typical week before classes begin kind of things. The weather has decided not to cooperate and covered the greater Bton area in a decent layer of snow. Schools are cancelled, meetings put off, and I am left with an entire day cleared. (Granted, I could trudge into the School of Education and clear out my carrel, but why ruin a perfectly good snow day?)
Before I haul out the sewing machine and begin working through piecing together a tote bag, I thought I would take a stab at making a list of my favorite fabrics of 2009, vis-à-vis TrueUp.net, a crafty fabric blog I follow. Even though I'm relatively new to sewing, I've managed to collect a decent amount of fabric, which is something of an unfortunate turn as my closet space is already strained by my yarn stash. Regardless, here are my favorites of the last year:
Favorite Quilting Collection
I'm drawn to vintage-inspired prints and Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley fits my aesthetic perfectly. TrueUp posted a postcard used as inspiration for the line back in May and I knew I would totally dig it. And I do. In large ways. I envision a zig zag quilt for my bed one of these days... perhaps when I get better at sewing straight lines...
Favorite Overall Designer
I feel like a bit of a cad listing Anna Marie Horner as my favorite overall designer given the love I feel for Hope Valley, but I can't help it. I am drawn to Horner's use of delightful color and the diversity in her line and find myself coming back to it again and again as I sew items for friends and family. This woman's got a lovely eye for color and balance and I feel as though I can play around with this fabric. With Denise's, I feel I need to be serious, an orientation I should do well to shed if I'm ever going to get anything done.
Favorite Holiday Print
Once again, I am sucked in by vintage charm. Sheri Berry's Have a Sheri Berry Holiday is filled with retro-inspired goodness. All the prints evoke a mid-century aesthetic, particularly the snow-covered village fabric above. It is, by far, my favorite of the collection.
Favorite Novelty Print
As a novice academic studying how children learn to read and write, there was no way I could possibly ignore this print of the Little Golden Books characters. Once again, there's the vintage factor as well as the many, many memories I have of my parents and I reading aloud from these books as I was growing up. I have a yard awaiting in my stash for just the perfect project.
Favorite Floral Print
I have two charm packs of Moda's Hello Betty line that will be turned into a quilt-ish top at some point. I'm in love with these (wait for it...) vintage designs but this particular fabric grabs me. There's something about the persimmon color against the dark backdrop that is just perfect.
Favorite Fabric Shop - Brick and Mortar
Shiisa Quilts is my local quilt fabric store, a beautifully stocked merchant of quality fabrics. I hold them personally responsible for my obsession with Anna Marie Horner but credit them with building my confidence as I attempt to wield the terrifying sewing machine.
Full disclosure: Jeri's Quilt Patch in my tiny hometown of Norway, Michigan is owned by my friend Marcy's Mom. She's the Jeri. She has amazing taste in fabric and this historic home is filled with a ridiculous amount of fabric, including some of the most beautiful reproduction fabric I have ever seen. It's almost overwhelming, but oh-so enjoyable.
Favorite Fabric Shop - In the Cloud
I also love SuperBuzzy for Japanese fabric. They carry such beautiful inventory as well as other objects from Japan (I lust after the Gera cross stitch patterns as well as most of their Kokka cotton-linen blend inventory) and have had such great service when I order from them. While I try to shop locally when possible, I am constantly checking SB for new inventory, new things to drool over.
Favorite Juvenile Print
One of my favorite prints from SuperBuzzy: Kokka's Hello My Friend: Let's Play print, which I first saw as TrueUp's Japanese Print of the Week. There's just so much right about this fabric. What's more fun that bright colors and Legos?
Favorite Fabric Trend: Gnomes
I love me some gnomes but came to anything involving fabric too late for Heather Ross's Lightning Bugs and Other Mysteries, my personal gnome fabric standard and most lusted-after over-priced eBay search. While economic pragmatics (the realities of being a grad student) prohibit my consumption of Heather Ross's design, there's been a proliferation of gnomes in recent lines. Michael Miller has an entire line devoted to these little people while making appearances in another line as well. Spoonflower has several offerings as well, such as weefolkart's Waldorf-inspired gnomes (above), while etsy's Pocketful of Pinwheels offers up the delightful Willard the Gnome. I think I'm in love.
Fabric I Will Be Most Happy to See Go Away
(Image via Shiisa Quilts)
I really hate this line of fabric. Really, really hate this line of fabric. Every time I walk into the fabric store, I flip it the middle finger as I walk by for insinuating that, in order to be a man, I must change tires, maintain a unibrow and porn star mustache. Bullpucky, I tell you. It so happens that I can rebuild an automobile's transmission and knit a baby sweater, thankyouverymuch. And really, in an age where we're constantly calling for boys to have spaces to be more gentle and thoughtful, do we really need a quilting fabric that reinforces the ridiculous stereotype that little boys need to engage in certain behavior in order to "be a man"?
Perhaps not a good idea to end my list with a rant... but that's about all I have time for as I've spent way too much time on this list. Time for some snow day sewing.
ha ha ha! I love that you just went off on "be a man" I always wonder what's up with all the "traffic" prints, i mean, why is that attractive? smog, anyone?
ReplyDelete