I am sure that I am not alone in my love of Kaffee Fascett fabric. I wanted to make a quilt as you go purse the same size as the folk art purse and thought this would be the perfect place to show off a Kaffee Fascett print. Since this is only my second attempt at making a purse, I spent more time planning it than I did actually making it. I detest having to throw out a project due to foolish mistakes so I always plan carefully.
Last week I made one of my large market tote bags out of this fabric that is based on Caribbean folk art. I do not normally go for the folk art look but the second I saw this fabric, I had to have it! I also purchased some of it's sister fabric at the same time that had a white background. This would be the second market bag I have made from this fabric. The question for me always is what do I do with the scraps left over from the market bag? I looked at some pictures of folk art but did not see anything that set my creative juices flowing. I really wanted to do this lovely fabric justice but let's face it, I am NOT a folk artist!
A couple of weeks ago I went on a hot pad spree. I made several hot pads all from this adorable veggie fabric. I ended up with 6 hot pads. I had two 2-1/2" strips of the main fabric along with some scrapes and also a 2-1/2' strip of the matching plaid fabric that was all part of this wonderful collection...HEY why not make a fabric bowl.? Good idea. The 2'1/2" strips yielded 3 strips each suitable for wrapping so I had plenty to make a smallish bowl. I started out the bottom of the bowl with a fabric which I will call nice green. It was a tone on tone and very Spring-like. I then switched to the veggie fabric and did a few rounds around the base with that and then started tilting for the sides.
A few years back I happened upon a store that was moving and they were getting rid of all of their books so I bought "Focus on Batiks" by Jan Bode Smiley. It has been sitting around collecting dust every since. A few days ago I picked it up and was browsing through it and there was this black and while scrap string quilt (not a batik) and there were 3 methods for making these string blocks and that fascinated me. The author was nice enough to explain the advantages and disadvantages of each method so this week I made an 8" block using all three methods. Since I felt that the black and white prints in the featured quilt were a bit monochromatic, I decided to throw in a couple of red, black and white fabrics to add a bit of interest. I have always liked quilts that employed these 3 colors and this was a opportunity to play around with those colors and try out some new techniques.
One of the most common misconceptions about being self employed as a fiber artist is that I spend all day at the sewing machine making lovely items. The hope is that when I am at my sewing machine that what I am working on does indeed end up being a lovely item but the truth of the matter is that in running a business and being self employed, I probably only spend about 50% of my time at the sewing machine. It amazes me how much time I spend on non sewing activity that is related to my business. Case in point...Sunday morning I spent an hour and a half printing tags, cutting out tags and labeling work that I would be delivering to a store this week. The term head chef AND bottle washer definitely applies here. What brings this up? I realized that it was Thursday and all I have made this week is 4 hot pads.
As I get up this morning to it being zero out side yet again, I am still determined to think Spring. The extended forecast tells me it is not going to get above freezing any time this week. Once again, I dig a nice floral fabric out of my stash to make a Spring like fabric basket but first I will talk about making a basket out of the scraps from the butterfly and flower themed hot pads. Since the background of the main print was while I felt contrast was the way to go. I have always liked teal and orange together and this is probably why I purchased this fabric in the first place. I did not have much of the teal fabric left so I would need to plan carefully. I started out with the teal for the bottom of the basket with the idea of making orange stripes further up the side and having a go around with the teal in between the orange stripes. All was going well until I got up to the teal stripe...I was running out of the teal! It was then that I remembered that these are bias strips and stretchy by nature. I unwrapped part of the teal back to where it wasn't sewn and rewrapped it a bit tighter and also stretched the strip slightly. YES, it worked and the teal strip did indeed go all the way around the bowl.
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I am sure that I am not alone in my love of Kaffee Fascett fabric. I wanted to make a quilt as you go purse the same size as the folk art purse and thought this would be the perfect place to show off a Kaffee Fascett print. Since this is only my second attempt at making a purse, I spent more time planning it than I did actually making it. I detest having to throw out a project due to foolish mistakes so I always plan carefully.
Last week I made one of my large market tote bags out of this fabric that is based on Caribbean folk art. I do not normally go for the folk art look but the second I saw this fabric, I had to have it! 
I also purchased some of it's sister fabric at the same time that had a white background. This would be the second market bag I have made from this fabric. The question for me always is what do I do with the scraps left over from the market bag? I looked at some pictures of folk art but did not see anything that set my creative juices flowing. I really wanted to do this lovely fabric justice but let's face it, I am NOT a folk artist!.JPG)
A couple of weeks ago I went on a hot pad spree. I made several hot pads all from this adorable veggie fabric. I ended up with 6 hot pads. I had two 2-1/2" strips of the main fabric along with some scrapes and also a 2-1/2' strip of the matching plaid fabric that was all part of this wonderful collection...HEY why not make a fabric bowl.? Good idea. The 2'1/2" strips yielded 3 strips each suitable for wrapping so I had plenty to make a smallish bowl. I started out the bottom of the bowl with a fabric which I will call nice green. It was a tone on tone and very Spring-like. I then switched to the veggie fabric and did a few rounds around the base with that and then started tilting for the sides.
A few years back I happened upon a store that was moving and they were getting rid of all of their books so I bought "Focus on Batiks" by Jan Bode Smiley. It has been sitting around collecting dust every since. A few days ago I picked it up and was browsing through it and there was this black and while scrap string quilt (not a batik) and there were 3 methods for making these string blocks and that fascinated me. The author was nice enough to explain the advantages and disadvantages of each method so this week I made an 8" block using all three methods. Since I felt that the black and white prints in the featured quilt were a bit monochromatic, I decided to throw in a couple of red, black and white fabrics to add a bit of interest. I have always liked quilts that employed these 3 colors and this was a opportunity to play around with those colors and try out some new techniques. 
One of the most common misconceptions about being self employed as a fiber artist is that I spend all day at the sewing machine making lovely items. The hope is that when I am at my sewing machine that what I am working on does indeed end up being a lovely item but the truth of the matter is that in running a business and being self employed, I probably only spend about 50% of my time at the sewing machine. It amazes me how much time I spend on non sewing activity that is related to my business. Case in point...Sunday morning I spent an hour and a half printing tags, cutting out tags and labeling work that I would be delivering to a store this week. The term head chef AND bottle washer definitely applies here. What brings this up? I realized that it was Thursday and all I have made this week is 4 hot pads.
As I get up this morning to it being zero out side yet again, I am still determined to think Spring. The extended forecast tells me it is not going to get above freezing any time this week. Once again, I dig a nice floral fabric out of my stash to make a Spring like fabric basket but first I will talk about making a basket out of the scraps from the butterfly and flower themed hot pads. Since the background of the main print was while I felt contrast was the way to go. I have always liked teal and orange together and this is probably why I purchased this fabric in the first place. I did not have much of the teal fabric left so I would need to plan carefully. I started out with the teal for the bottom of the basket with the idea of making orange stripes further up the side and having a go around with the teal in between the orange stripes. All was going well until I got up to the teal stripe...I was running out of the teal! It was then that I remembered that these are bias strips and stretchy by nature. I unwrapped part of the teal back to where it wasn't sewn and rewrapped it a bit tighter and also stretched the strip slightly. YES, it worked and the teal strip did indeed go all the way around the bowl.