I have a confession to make: I am not a good fabric purchaser. I have a really hard problem with buying fabric unless I have a specific quilt in mind. Perhaps it's my accounting background that causes the serious cheapness. I know that to you fabric hoarders, this probably doesn't seem like an issue but a lot of times I end up talking myself out of buying cute fabric and then missing out on it. Or, if I actually do buy fabric, I keep it in a drawer and refuse to use it on something unless I think the receiver will have a proper appreciation for it. I bought some of the Berenstain Bears fabric a while back and only just used it because I didn't want to waste it on someone who didn't care about the BBs.
Another issue is that I really can't seem to figure out how to use patterned fabrics. You may have noticed that my quilts tend to be all solids - except sometimes on the back. I swear I'm going to get this thing licked. So, with that in mind, I made a purchase!
Allow me to introduce you to Echino Birds in Black and Natural.
I'm thinking that these will combine into a super quilt called the Birds and the Bees. We'll see if that actually happens but for now I'm just awaiting their arrival in the mail! I should also mention that these are my first Echino fabrics and I'm pretty excited about that too. It's possible that I would have bought all 4 colorways of the bees if they had been in stock.
I have a question for my fellow quilters: When you buy fabric for no quilt in particular, how much do you buy? My cheapness says to go for a fat quarter but my inner quilter says go for at least a metre so it could be used on the back of something small.
Nothing to be ashamed of in the fabric buying department. To each their own! Any one of those fabrics would be really cool if you fussy cut it and combined it with your beloved solids. :)
ReplyDeleteOMG I love those birds! So great! a few years ago I had actually sewed through my entire stash. So I actually did some research on what yardage you should buy to build it back up. I actually only ever bought for a specific project, but now i have more of a generic stash that I can pull from as I am inspired to make something. There are a lot of opinions out there but i find that I like to buy 1/2 yards of things so that there is some substantial fabric there to actually do things with. If I stumble upon a really good sale I get a full yard :) I do buy FQs too, but usually in lines so that I can use them together. if I buy random fat quarters I hardly ever use them. It really also depends too on the type of quilting you do. If you like scrappy, 1/2 yards and FQs work, if not so scrappy you will want to get larger cuts. And you know what, if you love solids, sew with solids! Who says you have to use prints at all?! But the fabrics you bought are pretty sweet, cannot imagine not using them in something :)
ReplyDeleteI have tons of fat quarters and did not use them much until recently. Now that i actually use them, I know i will keep buying them, but without going for the flashy, high contrast ones. Tone on tones, low values, etc are kind of boring by themselves, but put 5, 15, heck, 25 together, and they are great. If i see a nice stripe that screams "binding", i buy 3/4 metres. I try to go easy on the " this would make a good backing" unless it is really, really cheap. Finally, i find myself buying more 1/2 metre cuts
ReplyDelete