Here’s what I’ve got so far for my Stitch Craft fabric collection on Spoonflower…

One more new design. I plan to play with the colors and layout on this one a lot more. But this is the first version. I was aiming for a design that I could do in a lot of colorways…I doodled these little icons. I figure I can do just sewing, just embroidery and just knitting or combos, with and without the background circles, etc. And, of course I need to add a crochet hook, since I don’t even knit. Anyway, pretty versatile!

They’re actually really small - more like polka dots. Here’s the Spoonflower 8×8 swatch:

First I started out touting the miracle of paper piecing hexagons. Then I quickly figured out that basting in the little papers was double the work - for me, anyway. Many people swear by it. So I made this handy tutorial for hand-piecing with no paper. I still think this method is the best for small hexagons. Then I found this tutorial for bigger hexagons, machine-pieced together! And today, another awesome tutorial - this one video - by fellow LA Modern Quilt Guild member, Liz Harvatine. She’s also got a pdf of hex templates - bigger hexes than my pdf templates. And don’t you love the solids she used? Awesome.

So, there are no excuses now. Make a hexagon quilt already!

These are in my spoonflower library now. I’m ordering swatches to see what the colors really look like.

I’m still fiddling around with layout. I can’t seem to get my vision of safari animals at the watering hole to work out. But the costume dudes are still fun. I’d love your feedback, you lovely multitude of reader :) (‘s’ omitted on purpose!) These are the fat quarter views.

Update - here is my first version. I didn’t include it in my initial post because I wasn’t crazy about it, but the concensus is a need for a closer grouping of the dudes. I’m not sure if it’s the green or the drop shadows I didn’t like, but I disliked this enough to leave it out. I think my real problem with these guys - closely grouped or not, is that I can’t see using them in a quilt. So while I like the idea of gathering around the watering hole, I probably wouldn’t ever use the fabric. That’s no good. So I need a way to use them in a design that is conducive to sewing.

But here’s a better view of the costume dudes - the spoonflower pics are always blurry and hard to see.

EYE CANDY!

Oh man. Look at this quilt tutorial from Vanessa of V & Co. SO CUTE. I must make one of those. Who’s having a baby next?

Extra time on your hands? Maybe you need some fabric eggs for Easter!

And I have at least three pairs of cargo pants that need to become these awesome little messenger bags. Reuse!

So many awesome FREE tutorials online. Why do I ever buy patterns?!

Earlier this week, I finished the binding and the label on my sister’s crazy nine patch (tutorial from Oh Fransson!). So it’s officially ready to mail. But I wanted to bring it with me to the weekend sew to have a show and tell, and I still needed to flickerize it. So here are some photos:

I had a ball yesterday sewing with some of the girls from the LA Modern Quilt Guild. Did I accomplish all the projects I hoped to? Of course not. Too much talking, not enough sewing. But I definitely had fun, and I always over plan what I can accomplish at these things. So here’s what I did accomplish - I got a good head start on my hot cross quilt. I have been inspired by Latifah’s amazing color choices, and am doing all kona solids, using coal as my base. These are 6″ blocks, and they’ll be sashed with more coal so the crosses don’t touch. I may offset them also, I’m not sure yet.

Over the weekend, I also assembled all the packets for my Bee Happy spiderweb blocks! Can’t wait to see how they come out. I’ve asked everyone to make one block each, and I’ll make the rest. So everyone got their 12.5″ coal square and 8 random strips. I tried to include some special fabrics - some of my prize Heather Ross prints and someone got a strip of FMF yellow seeds. Everyone got totally different fabrics, so I think it’s going to be great. I think I’ll need 20 blocks for a good nap size quilt. Also using coal on these - I’m going coal crazy, but I think it’s a nice departure from my white craze.

Rather than maintain a group blog, we’ve decided to house our fun bee contributions over on Flickr. I hope you’ll visit our Bee Happy Bee photo pool.

Here’s my first try at our web button - which may change as the group hasn’t seen it yet :)

Members, you can copy and paste this code to put the button on your own blogs:

I just checked in over at Wondermommy and filled in my stashbusters yardage and project totals for the week. Not very impressive - 2.5 yards used and 18 items made. 18 sounds like a lot, but camera straps just don’t use much yardage. I just need more sewing time!

Someone sent me a convo today on my Etsy shop asking if I had any of MY fabric for sale. My little unicorn and dragon! How awesome is that? She didn’t actually buy it yet, but I set up her custom listing, so I’m hopeful. I’ve also been working on some other fabrics - still costume dudes. Here’s a preview:

I love those guys! I think my addiction to grey and mustard is seeping into my new fabric design, as is our frequent visits to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. The only other thing I can tell you is that the theme is “watering hole”…it needs a lot of work, but so far, I’m liking my dudes.

I’m also working on organizing a virtual quilting bee. We are all members of the LA Modern Quilt Guild. We’ve got all our members, so now I’m just gathering all the contact info and figuring out who has which month. So far so good. We’ve got a name - Bee Happy. I’ve got to make us a button for all of our blogs and set up a flickr group for our finished projects. Easy enough.

I volunteered to be March, and I already know what project I want to do - a little village. I’ve been eyeing these quilts all over the place, and I think I NEED one.

**Update, 3/7/2010: I noticed yesterday that they removed the plum gnomes from the lineup. I guess they’re working on the dye!

I’m still plugging away at stashbusters. I did a lot of sewing this weekend, but unfortunately, camera straps don’t use much fabric. I would say I used 2 1/4 yards of fabric this weekend, though! Not bad.

My friend Alison wants to go in on some Heather Ross fabric from Spoonflower. We’ll purchase 3 or 4 different prints, and divvy up the yardage, so we all get some of each print. I’m all for it! But I’m being a good girl and waiting for April 1st.

One bad thing about those $20/yard prints is that apparently they really fade. Banquopak on Flickr has been doing some wash tests, and the fading is pretty bad on the dark plum. I’m not sure I care all that much. The only thing that concerns me is that I don’t prewash, and I use a lot of white. So if they’re fading that much, that dye is going somewhere, right? Will a color catcher catch that much color? (that is your tongue twister for the day :))

I still want all the mushrooms and the gnomes, anyway.

Big production line weekend around here. I managed to make a bunch of new straps for the shop. I didn’t manage to make half of what I hoped to, so I clearly need to speed up the process. My slow progress may be caused by watching the whole first season of LA Ink on Netflix while sewing :)

The good news is that I finally figured out how to make the vinyl move a little more smoothly under my foot (sewing machine foot, that is). Apparently, my trying to FORCE it or sew it really fast is all wrong! Which I learned by doing that repeatedly, having terrible results, and having to seam-rip the vinyl off and start over.

So, then I started sewing very slowly, and barely holding on to the vinyl, not pushing at all, and it fed through just fine! Who knew?!

I also had my quality tester make sure all the straps were up to standard :)