Feel Good Fabric...

Have you ever worked on a quilt where the fabrics just made you smile?
The current project on my cutting table is doing just that!

Most of the time I am a pretty traditional quilter. I've gone through a batik phase, an oriental phase, an all-thing bright phase...but at the end of the day the one constant has been my traditional fabrics. I've also had some fairly strange "rules" like I don't generally mixed batiks with regular fabrics...30's repros with current florals...civil war repro with just about anything else...

"multi-generational" quilt...top purchased in Maryland 1994, quilted 1994

So why am I busting through the rules now...first, I used some of the Kaffe Fasset double shot cottons in a civil war repro quilts. They worked great. Then I spent a lot of time studying fabrics in an old quilt I was hanging in my hallway. I've heard it called "multi-generational"...basically it has fabrics from the late 1800's through to the 1930's. (Seems we aren't the only ones who thought that putting some old quilt blocks together may be a good idea!) Finally I have spent a lot of time paging through the two Material Obsession books. It occurred to me that have a lot of fabric like what they showed in the book..only mine is segregated - the Kaffe and large prints are in baskets on top of the bookcase, reproductions are in the guest room dresser, brights are in boxes on the top shelf of the closet, and 1930's are in the child's chest of drawers in the corner of my closet.

So I grabbed my laundry basket and went room to room and stash to stash pulling blues, purples, yellows and pinks (a few reds slipped in there so I know my eyesight isn't up to par yet!) I even raided the linen drawer in my dining room where I hoard (whoops - store) fabric from cut-up shirts for that someday recycled shirt quilt. I pulled the bin labeled 2-1/2 inch blocks that last year I filled vowing to use the Bonnie system...only I really haven't made a dent in anything other than the 2-1/2 inch strips.I'm having a blast! This is the happiest quilt! Amazing that fabric I would "never" put together look great in this 36 patch block! I mean 30's with Kaffe with a bit of "Piece of cake plaid"...say what? I love it!

Macbeth checking to make sure there is some 1930's scottie dog fabrics in the quilt....

I like knowing I hit almost every fabric hiding spot on the house and that I am not just using the same old fabrics.

Now for some blog followups....

1. the arrow head blocks shown in my "maybe its the moon" post were from the Quiltmaker #136, November-December '10 edition. It is also from the book ary Cutting Revolution by Anita Solomam.

2. Brownie rose from her sickbed and saved the day by capturing the gecko in my Dining room an hour before the guests arrived....she has been richly rewarded!